


Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon

by FeelsForBreakfast



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Case Fic, Frogs, M/M, Mystery!, Werewolf Draco Malfoy, laughs!, werewolves!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:08:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22793008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelsForBreakfast/pseuds/FeelsForBreakfast
Summary: According to Harry’s personal narrative regarding the incident, he’d hooked up with Draco Malfoy for purely self-destructive reasons, or out of convenience, or by some unlucky accident. Looking at him, sprawled in the moonlight, Harry is devastated to recall that he’d hooked up with Draco Malfoy because he’s hot.Draco is a secret werewolf and Harry is doing his best and they've got criminals to catch, darn it.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 182
Kudos: 1132





	Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon

**Author's Note:**

> The largest, biggest, most super sized thank you to Allie @alpha-exodus who made this fic the beautiful treasure you see before you!! Without her it would only be ok and with her absolutely crucial assistance, it's won a Pulitzer and Also the National Book Award.
> 
> Content warnings for this one are blood, minor injury, references to drinking, dick touching, the babiest whisper of dom/sub dynamics

Harry is surprised by how much Draco smells like dirt. He hadn’t remembered Lupin smelling that way. Harry considers that it has something to do with it being nighttime, or that he’s been up for so long, or that Draco is stark naked in the middle of Muggle London. Harry doesn’t know why that would make him smell like dirt, but Draco’s extremely visible arse is making him feel a little panicky and he’s out of explanations.

“You can go home if you want, Dara,” Harry says, digging around in his endless Auror pack for a shock blanket to cover up the arse in question. “I know Jess has her recital in the morning.”

Letting Dara leave is the nice thing to do, and comes with the added bonus that she won’t be present for the horrors likely to unfold once Draco wakes up. Saying embarrassing things about Harry is Draco’s lifelong personal joy, and if he does say anything, Dara will bring it up once a week until Harry dies.

“Cheers, HP.” Dara gives him a swift nod. At least a third of her wild, dark curls have ended up in her face after their night galavanting and fighting crime. Together, they’re easily the set of Auror partners in possession of the most chaotic hair, which they both take personal pride in. “Didn’t know this one would be such a runner. How late did he keep us?”

Harry casts a quick _Tempus_ , groaning when the spell chirps 3:26. They’d been meant to get off around three, but someone had called in about a werewolf loose in London and everyone else had been occupied. “Malfoy is always more difficult than he needs to be.”

Dara snorts, buttoning her garish purple raincloak with a look up at the sky, which has been slowly clouding over all night. “He like that in bed too?”

“None of your business, thanks,” Harry says, hoping that the darkness will hide his blush as he finally wrests the shock blanket out of his pack and throws it over Draco’s body, curled and pale on the edge of someone’s petunias. He’s better, covered in the blanket, because it means that even if Harry really wants to look at him, he can’t.

“Couldn’t resist,” Dara says, practically twinkling.

“Keep it up and I’ll let Princess know you think they’re fit,” Harry says, deciding that everyone knowing he’s slept with Draco is at least as embarrassing as the eyes Dara makes at their favorite bartender every time they all go for pints.

“Who says I haven’t already told them?” Dara says, pulling up her hood so she looks like she’s peering out of a purple pansy. “See you tomorrow night, champ.”

Harry nods. “Give Jess good luck from me.”

“Sure thing,” Dara says, then Disapparates with a crack that reverberates through the empty street. At the sound, Draco stirs but still doesn’t wake.

Harry sits down on the damp grass, looking up at the sky with vague distaste. He should have known they’d get werewolf calls on a night like this, with the moon full and the air humid and lush. He still can’t quite believe that when they tracked this one down he’d know the man on the other end.

He’s trying not to stare at Draco and doing a horrible job of it. According to Harry’s personal narrative regarding the incident, he’d hooked up with Draco Malfoy for purely self-destructive reasons, or out of convenience, or by some unlucky accident. Looking at him, sprawled in the moonlight, Harry is devastated to recall that he’d hooked up with Draco Malfoy because he’s hot.

Harry had known, generally, that kissing Draco in the bathroom at a Ministry function when Draco was trying to apologize had been a bad idea, but this is all really putting it into perspective. Avoiding him afterwards for two years had also been, perhaps, not his finest choice. He doesn’t know if any of this is better or worse than all the other ways he feels about Draco, none of which really make sense anymore. It feels almost fitting that their reunion should be this fucking stupid.

He reaches for the dart full of antidote they’d shot into Draco’s shoulder, easing it out and bagging it up for evidence, trying to make his glances strictly clinical. Even passed out on the ground, Draco looks tired, his terribly pink mouth slightly open, the line of his jaw as sharp and unforgiving as it had been under Harry’s hands. _Oh no_ , Harry thinks vaguely, and looks pointedly away from the lean, muscular lines of Draco’s shoulders.

“Any plans to wake up?”

Draco stirs. The dirt smell hits Harry again, stronger this time, something almost like cloves in it. He wonders exactly how long Draco has been a werewolf. He feels like he should have been told or maybe sensed it intuitively. It’s possible that Draco had even been a werewolf back when they were sleeping together and that he hadn’t had any idea. That he could have missed such a crucial detail makes him feel strange, like a staircase with one more step than you’re expecting.

The electric orange of the shock blanket covers most of the familiar lankiness of Draco’s body, only his head and shoulders and a delicate hand visible. He looks unearthly, pretty, like flowers at night, Harry thinks, and then subsequently wonders if he should just leave Draco under the shock blanket and bolt if he’s going to be thinking thoughts like that.

Harry hasn’t seen him in years and he’s disoriented by how familiar it feels to be sitting next to him in someone’s tiny garden. Harry wants to be a completely different person than the one who was so messed up and unwound that he’d ended up trashed on expensive wine and with his tongue Draco’s throat. Sitting here, it doesn’t feel like much has changed.

It begins to rain, one droplet after another landing on his glasses. He casts a shield charm over both of them just as it picks up, rain tapping unevenly on the upper barrier of the magic.

“C’mon Malfoy, you’re stunned, not dead,” Harry mutters. He gives Draco a gentle push on the shoulder in much the same way that he would nudge something he suspected might explode.

Draco stirs again, first halfheartedly and then with more purpose, his gray eyes finally blinking open in the scant light of the street.

“Oh Merlin,” is the first thing he says, snapping his eyes back shut like if he blinks, the situation will change. “Merlin, bugger, shite.”

“Mouthy,” Harry says, and then wonders what, exactly, possessed him to say such a thing.

Draco sits up wide eyed, the violently-colored blanket crumpling around his torso. He looks terrified, and it’s such a disarming expression that it makes Harry want to throw the blanket back over his head. “ _Potter?_ ”

“Sorry,” Harry says.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Draco says, looking down at himself and seeming to register first that he’s naked and second that he’s wrapped in an orange sheet. Harry can’t recall ever seeing Draco in orange, an observation confirmed by the appalled look on Draco’s face. “And of course you’d be here!”

“Sorry,” Harry says, sounding quite a bit less sorry than the first time. “You can thank me for chasing you down some other time, then.”

Draco sniffs. He’s doing a fair approximation of dignity for someone who is covered in dirt and scrapes, which Harry considers to be one of Draco’s special talents. Harry recalls that he’d even looked rather dignified with Harry’s cock in his mouth, which couldn’t be less of a helpful thought, all things considered.

“Have I hurt anyone?” Draco asks, reaching up to touch his hair, which is a mess. He fusses with it until it resumes an approximation of its normal shape, leaving only a few strands in the back that haven’t quite cooperated. There’s also a fair bit of dirt in it, and a shred of a flower petal. Harry pointedly does not mention the flower petal.

“Just some petunias,” Harry says, pointing out the plants Draco had forcefully reclined on. They’d found him tearing down the street in a residential Muggle neighborhood: a lithe, white wolf with wild gray eyes. After a half an hour of chasing and a well-aimed dart, he’d finally tumbled into someone’s garden.

Draco acknowledges this with a tight nod, looking at Harry, himself, and the garden at large with displeasure. He seems in less immediate danger of murdering Harry or anyone else, which is a relief. “Couldn’t have given me anything more dignified than an enormous tangerine handkerchief, could you?”

Harry thinks that it’s probably a good sign that Draco’s feeling enough like himself to be properly difficult. “It was that or leaving you arse naked.”

“That would have been more refined,” Draco says, even as he pulls the orange blanket up to cover his chest.

“I’ll remember that for next time.” The rain has started to pick up, pattering an even drum beat on the top of his shield charm. “If I take you back to the Healers and help you get sorted like I’m supposed to, how difficult are you going to make my life?”

Draco sneers at him, looking surprisingly threatening for someone essentially wearing a toga. “Potter, I will skin you.”

Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes, which will only make Draco bristle further. “I thought as much.”

“I’m frankly surprised I haven’t Disapparated already,” Draco adds, as if he thinks Harry doesn’t know he’s still too delirious to do so without splinching.

Harry raises his eyebrows to let him know that he’s very much aware of the situation. An idea pricks at him and he entertains it, even though it’s not strictly protocol. He’s not sure this situation could get any stupider, which is a little liberating. “If I promise not to bring you in, can we at least get out of the rain?”

Draco squints at him. “Are you trying to get me to come to your flat?”

“I’m actually trying to do my job. You may have heard of it? The Aurors?” Harry asks with perhaps a little more venom than is required, mostly because he had, successfully, brought Draco back to his flat, and now they’re here, in the rain, having this horrible conversation.

Draco hmphs but doesn’t press the point, so Harry digs around in his bag for his change of clothes. He knows they won’t fit Draco quite right, which he’ll probably get at least one laugh out of. “Put these on.”

Draco makes a face and mutters what Harry’s sure is a winning comeback under his breath. He snatches the clothes from Harry’s outstretched hand and staggers around spectacularly through the flower patch as he pulls them on. Harry can only imagine what the Muggle owner will assume has happened to their garden, as Draco has just stepped very squarely on the already very sorry looking petunias.

Harry stifles a laugh when Draco loses track of his balance and nearly keels over into the siding of the nearby house. Draco looks at him like if he laughs again it’ll be his last time doing so, so he schools his face back into seriousness.

“No pants, of course,” Draco says, pulling the jumper up and over his head.

“Did you want my pants?” Harry asks, and Draco gives him a look that could kill a small animal. “That’s what I thought.”

Draco finally manages to content himself with the jumper and the joggers, as clothing that is slightly roomy on Harry nearly fits Draco. The only indication that the clothes aren’t his are the way his ankles hang out the bottoms of the joggers rather winningly, which Harry finds just as amusing as he knew he would.

“Ready to side-along?” Harry asks, holding out his arm.

“If I must,” Draco says, wrapping his arm firmly around Harry’s. With a crack, they whirl out of the lamp-lit neighborhood.

“Where have you brought me, Potter?” Draco asks almost immediately upon materializing in the dank alleyway, frowning up at the still falling rain. “This is hardly sanitary.”

Harry doesn’t bother answering or dropping Draco’s arm as he pulls them into the street, crossing towards a buzzing neon sign in the middle of the sleepy boulevard. He almost asks if Draco ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit all the time, but he knows that he, personally, never ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit.

“I’ll get you whatever you want, within reason, if you make my job as easy as possible,” Harry says, holding the door so Draco can slink in. He’s supposed to assign a Healer to assist any recently transformed werewolf in case of retransformation or unexpected injury, but knows that suggesting this to Draco would be a death wish.

“Am I being detained, Auror Potter?” Draco asks sharply.

“Not as such,” Harry replies. “If you think you’re fit to Apparate home, go right ahead.”

Draco scowls, but doesn’t argue. The blinds on the large windows are halfway down, keeping the green-yellow light curled inside the interior of the greasy spoon diner. The light makes Draco look nearly sickly, not that he’d looked hearty sprawled out in the moonlight. Harry remembers seeing the same concavity in Remus’ face and wonders how either of them would feel about being so alike the other.

“Nice to see you, Harry,” Lee Jordan says as he sweeps past with a dangerously full milkshake in one hand and a plate of pancakes flying behind him. Harry realizes that Draco is definitely still barefoot and is glad Lee doesn’t seem to have noticed. “Malfoy, you’re just as pointy as I remembered, fantastic to see you too. Please don’t puncture anything with your elbows, chin, or nose. Take a seat wherever, loverboys, but please don’t sit on invisible Sam in the corner booth.”

“Thanks Lee,” Harry replies, leading Draco over to a booth near the counter, the blue vinyl seats crinkling as they slide in. Lee swings past long enough to drop two bright blue, shimmering menus onto the table top before heading back to the register, where a gaggle of teenagers are touching up each other’s lipstick and waiting to make eyes at Lee before they leave.

“What is this place? Pancakes—and at night? What kind of American foolishness is this, Potter?” Draco is very much turning up his nose, though something pleasant flickers across his face unbidden as the menu elaborately unfolds with a puff of glimmering golden dust and iridescent stars. “Complicated magic for a dive.”

“Lee does some Wheezes stuff with Fred and George,” Harry says, smiling as the moon on his menu gives him a roguish wink. “He’s good with a charm.”

“So why does he work nights at an odd restaurant?” Draco asks, scanning the odd mix of clientele drinking milkshakes from tall green glasses and rustling around in half concealed pockets. “Weasleys stiffed him out of the business?”

“It was his dad’s place. Lee runs it now,” Harry says. “I think he wanted it to stay in the family.” He thinks for a moment. “It can be nice to have some company at night.”

He’s making a reference to all the nightmares he had after the war, but Draco raises his eyebrows like he’s assuming Harry is talking about the two times that Draco slept in his bed. Harry opens his mouth to correct him but realizes that will only make things worse.

Draco examines the menu carefully, like it’s a wine list, ignoring Harry completely. “Mmm.”

Harry almost mockingly makes the sound back to him out of habit, but at the last moment reminds himself that he’s trying to be civil. Instead, he gives the menu a perfunctory examination, folding it back up almost immediately. He’s come here after shifts often enough that he practically knows it by heart.

“Decaf for you, Harry?” Lee asks, leaning a lazy elbow on the back edge of Draco’s booth, the coffee pot in his hands. He has his dreads pulled back with a moon and stars handkerchief that Harry hasn’t seen before.

Harry nods, holding his cup out for Lee to fill. “Cool bandana.”

Lee strikes a bit of a pose and turns to Draco.

“Mint milkshake for me,” Draco says. “And lemon crepes.”

Lee laughs. “You have a spectacular palette, Malfoy.”

“I am cultured,” Draco says, handing his menu back over. Harry is nearly positive he’s making a joke and not just being a ponce, which is a surprise, if a pleasant one. Taking Draco here had been a risk that still had plenty of time to backfire, but he’s hoping they’ll get through midnight breakfast with his questions answered and all of his limbs intact.

“I’ll have Circe’s Skillet,” Harry says.

“You’re the stability I need in my life,” Lee says with a wink, ferrying their orders back to the kitchen.

After Lee leaves, Draco is looking at him and he’s looking at Draco and he realizes that this is an insane thing for him to have done, all things considered. He’s never had a pleasant conversation with Draco, and the idea that he’s going to do so now feels patently absurd. He considers just punching Draco in the nose, yelling ‘jokes!’, and backflipping out of the diner, but decides its not worth the inevitable hassle.

“Do you come here often?” Draco asks finally, picking up a napkin and worrying at the edge of it with his long fingers. Something in his expression conveys that he has no idea what to do with Harry just as Harry has no idea what to do with him, which is mildly comforting.

“Is that a come on?” Harry asks, and then, when Draco just glares at him, “Yeah, after shifts a lot when I’m too wired to sleep. It’s weird enough here that no one pays me much attention.”

Draco nods vaguely. His fingernails, Harry notices, have dirt underneath. In his memories, Draco is always so clean, and it’s jarring to see him like this, a little less so. It always surprises him how much he still knows about Draco, how much he’ll probably always know.

Draco clears his throat pointedly, looking at Harry down the bridge of his nose. “Didn’t anyone teach you that staring is impolite?”

“I’m not staring,” Harry says, even though he is. “I’ll keep my eyes on my menu for the rest of breakfast if that makes you feel better.”

“Is it still breakfast if it’s 3 am?” Draco asks, looking so ornery that Harry almost laughs.

“I think it’s actually 4.” Harry says, remembering his _Tempus_ charm earlier. Outside, the rain has picked up to a steady drizzle, and Harry registers that it almost doesn’t feel like time exists at all. “If you answer all my questions, we can go home sooner rather than later.”

“Fine,” Draco says, looking quite perturbed. Harry has to admit that the Auror’s werewolf procedure of ‘find, assist, support’ seems a little stranger when it’s applied to his old schoolmate/enemy/accidental-gay-tabloid-scandal.

“So, about your furry little problem.”

Draco narrows his eyes. “You’ve already nicknamed it.”

“I stole that one,” Harry says, thinking with a bright, sad flash of fondness about Lupin. “How wolfy would you describe your life, on average?”

“Not particularly wolfy,” Draco says, setting down the napkin he’s pulverizing and nesting his chin on his palm. Harry realizes with a jolt of relief that he’s actually going to answer the questions put to him, which is never a given where Draco is concerned. “As you probably know, the potions have improved quite a bit since the war. Most werewolves choose not to transform at all.”

Harry had seen him change, watched his back curl out of the wolf body and his hair pull into his follicles, but it’s still strange to hear him admit it. Even the antidote the Aurors use to bring werewolves back to human form had only been discovered the previous year.

“Hilarious how things improve when you put money into public health,” Harry says, reminded of hours of Hermione’s heated policy rants.

“Cheers,” Draco says dryly. Having Draco agree with him on anything is still a surprise, though Harry knows it shouldn’t be. He’d donated money, he'd gone to all the charity balls, he’d been there like a shadow rebuilding the castle that first summer. “With the havoc Fenrir wreaked on the population at large, I suppose they couldn’t just pretend lycanthropy only happened to the evil, slum-dwelling queers.”

Harry nearly chokes on his coffee. “For Merlin’s sake.”

“Do you think I’m wrong?” Draco lifts a single eyebrow, a move that Harry doesn’t remember him knowing how to do.

“Just blunt,” Harry says, the next bit tumbling out of his mouth before he can decide if it’s actually a good idea to say, “although you’re obviously an evil queer.”

“Divine justice finally served,” Draco says, with a hint of petulance. He speaks like he’s constantly mouthing a lemon.

Lee appears at their table with two steaming-hot plates hovering above his left shoulder, Draco’s milkshake in his hand. “Did I hear you say something about divine justice?” Lee asks, lowering their food in front of them. “It’s served.”

“Good grief,” Harry says, as Lee laughs at his own cleverness.

“Georgie’s missing you, Harry. Says you haven’t been in to test out the newest sweets in ages.” Lee gives a tragic shake of the head. “Too busy out with the new boyfriend to visit your old Gryffindor chums. Well, I say new boyfriend—”

“It’s Auror business,” Harry fibs. “Malfoy’s helping me with a case. And I was in Wheezes last month for four hours and nearly lost my nose.”

“Ah, your poor nose,” Lee says. “Wouldn’t want you to go the way of old Voldy.” He pauses for a very tragic looking expression. “Well, enjoy your food, let me know if you need anything.”

Lee zips back to the kitchen, leaving them in a silence that feels like it could turn into anything.

“You’d think three years later, we would have lived it down,” Draco says, as he takes a long pull of his milkshake through the shiny blue straw, sending a jolt a pure panic running through Harry’s body, as ‘it’ mostly definitely refers to the fact that after the war they kissed and that the Daily Prophet caught them doing it.

“Everyone’s a comedian tonight,” Harry says gruffly, drizzling hot sauce over his steaming skillet. He glances up at Draco for a clue about the kind of thing he’s expected to say and finds Draco looking coolly over at him like he’s expecting Harry to say something really stupid, which he probably is.

“What?” Harry snaps.

“Nothing,” Draco shoots back, cutting into his crepe with a grim determination. The transformation has left him with a pallor to his skin and puffiness around the eyes, but he doesn’t look much less appealing in Harry’s jumper than he had at the Ministry charity functions right after the war. Harry wishes that Draco looking appealing wasn’t something he was aware of.

“Sorry,” Harry says finally.

“For what part?” Draco says, and Harry yearns for the bygone times that he could just throw hexes at any uncomfortable situation with Draco.

“For being weird after. Or weirder. Y’know, than everything always was. I mean, between us,” Harry chokes out. It’s even worse than when he asked Cho to the Yule Ball, he realizes. He didn’t think it would be possible to have a worse conversation, but here he is, having it. “I thought about owling.” He hadn’t known what to say or even what he’d wanted to say, so he never did it, letting the weeks slide by into months until it was far too late to say anything at all.

For a moment, Harry thinks Draco is just going to stare at him with dinner plate eyes instead of answering. “I just assumed you wanted to forget about it.”

Harry sighs, scrubbing his hand across his face. He can picture Hermione telling him he needs to talk about his ‘issues,’ which makes all of this even more acutely torturous. “I was really embarrassed,” Harry says reluctantly, more honest about it than he ever was with anyone else. In fact, he’d taken two weeks off and refused to talk about it with such vehemence that everyone mostly backed off. In retrospect, his inability to play it cool probably just made the whole thing worse. “The Prophet made it sound like more than it was.”

Draco nods, gesturing dismissively with his fork, a piece of crepe threatening to fly off. Harry notices that his cheeks are rather more flushed than they usually are, and is sure he looks the same. “Typical, really. Four snogs in the bathroom and suddenly we’re star crossed lovers.”

Harry groans. “And the picture, Merlin. It looked like we were...” Harry trails off, taking a bite so he doesn’t have to finish the sentence. _It looked like we were star crossed lovers._

“I know,” Draco says, looking quietly mortified.

“Sorry,” Harry says, letting out a breath too quickly. “That’s not why I brought you here, that was unprofessional.”

Draco purses his lips. “I’m the last person you’re fooling with professionalism, Potter.”

“Right,” Harry says. There are a million idiotic questions threatening to jump out of his mouth, not the least of which being ‘do you ever think about it?’ which he’s really not sure he wants to know the answer to, because he does think about it, rather more than he ever wanted to. He thinks if he doesn’t drag the conversation back into werewolf territory this very second, things are going to get quite messy quite fast. “Is St. Mungo’s helping you at all? They can usually figure out who bit you and work with them too.”

Draco takes another long sip of milkshake. “I was bitten my seventh year.”

Harry winces, knowing exactly why Draco wouldn’t have gone to anyone for help. “You’ve kept it a secret this long?”

“And I’ll continue to do so,” Draco says, giving Harry a hard look. “I’m not an imbecile.”

“It’s not as big of a deal now,” Harry tries, knowing he shouldn’t be arguing. “Bill has all those scars and there’s that girl in Wiz Mix, nobody cares that she’s a werewolf. No one minds as much anymore.”

Draco is shaking his head before Harry even finishes. “You’ll forgive me for telling you to shove it. Why would I come out? What would that do except remind everyone that being a werewolf is something that happens to bad people? I’m never going to be a role model. I’m not a ‘living with lycanthropy’ success story, Harry.”

Somehow, it’s the use of his first name that makes it so jarring. “I know, you’re right, I know. It’s just fucking bollocks.”

“Eloquent.” Draco says flippantly.

“It is, its bollocks and it’s stupid,” Harry says, angrily spearing a piece of broccoli. Draco is giving him a weird, unreadable look again so Harry ploughs on, unable to stop himself. “I’m serious, I’m fucking sick of it. It was fucking stupid when Lupin had to resign for being a werewolf and its even stupider now. It’s not like you chose to be one, and even if you did, who fucking cares. Being a werewolf has fuck all to do with what kind of person someone is. It’s complete bollocks.”

Draco, inexplicably, begins to give him what is nearly a smile.

“Why are you smiling? I’m being serious. You know better than anyone that people believe this rubbish. It’s the most useless fucking shite,” Harry says, unsure how he’s gotten here, lecturing Draco Malfoy of all people about all of this.

The left side of Draco’s mouth is still quirked up on the side. “I don’t think I quite realized how it would feel to experience this while I’m actually on your side.”

“Experience _what_?” Harry asks, feeling sure that Draco is working up to making fun of him.

“Your righteous anger,” Draco says. “It’s very valiant. Very convincing. I understand why everyone thought you’d save the world.”

“ _Oh,_ ” Harry says, around a mouthful of food. He’s still concerned that Draco is kind of making fun of him, but something about the way he says it feels sincere.

“Indeed.” Draco says, looking a little unsure of himself. It gives his face a terrible bit of softness and makes it incredibly difficult for Harry to remember what the hell he’s supposed to be saying.

“Did you— How many people know?”

“My mother,” Draco says. “Exclusively.”

“Not even Parkinson? Zabini? Goyle?” Harry almost asks about Crabbe, but then remembers with a jolt.

Draco shakes his head. He has an expression on his face that indicates that Harry is being even stupider than usual, which is an awful lot of heavy lifting for a look to do. “Do you know why I’m here?”

Harry frowns, realizing he hasn’t really questioned it. Draco has had the arcane ability to appear unannounced and unbidden in Harry’s life at inopportune times for as long as he can remember. “Not at all, actually.”

“Because I’m hoping you can find out why I transformed for the first time since I was nineteen,” Draco says. “If I try to figure it out myself, there’s a chance I won’t be acting... legally. My mother would never forgive me if I was arrested at this point.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “You’re asking for my help?”

“Don’t make it sound so gauche,” Draco says, scowling. He says gauche in the same way he’s always said ‘Gryffindor.’

“But why?” Harry asks. “Surely there’s someone else you’d rather ask.”

Draco looks like he quite agrees. “Well, you already know I’m a werewolf,” he says, lowering his voice for the last word. He seems to be steeling himself for whatever he’s going to say. “And I trust you.” Harry gapes, and Draco cuts him off before he can respond. “I think you’re a knob and a pillock, but you’re a good person, even when you don’t have to be. It’s your whole thing.” Draco delivers the last part of this declaration as if he’s gently breaking the news of a death in the family.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Harry asks.

“I’ve lost track,” Draco says. “Probably.”

“Okay,” Harry says, because Draco is right, even though he can’t quite believe it. Doing the right thing is pretty much his entire bit, even when that means helping Draco, who is, most dreadfully, hot now. “What do you think is going on?”

“Nothing good, I can tell you that,” Draco says, thoughtfully taking a bite of crepe. “I’ll bring you up to speed. You’re familiar with my Potions shop?”

Harry is. The Prophet had given it breathless coverage in the aftermath of the war as they scrounged around for all the feel good stories they could find, gleefully referring to Draco as ‘Chosen One Harry Potter’s former fling,’ which is absolutely the last way anyone should be referring to Draco, reformed Death Eater and general wanker. “Seemed like it was going pretty well.”

“Quite,” Draco says, an unmistakable gleam of pride in his eyes. “A convenience of having my own shop means that I can brew my own lycanthropy potion without anyone knowing I take it. The potion I took last night was from next month’s batch, and someone, somehow, has tampered with it.”

“Are you sure?” Harry asks. He tries to diplomatically ask Draco if he’s positive he hasn’t just biffed the potion, but can’t figure out a phrasing that won’t make Draco bite his head off.

“What do you mean am I sure? Of course I’m sure,” Draco says, like he knows what Harry’s trying to figure out how to ask and is offended that he’s even thought such a thing. “It’s certainly been tampered with. I’ve never made an imperfect potion.” He takes another imperious bite of crepe, and then concedes to Harry’s counter-argument, which is just to give Draco a dubious look until he caves. “Alright, well I really have never made an imperfect potion, but even if I had, this one would still have been tampered with. Whoever did it altered it in such a way that it looked, smelled, and behaved just like the real thing. That’s no accident. Faulty ingredients create faulty potions, only sabotage would be so undetectable.”

Harry doesn’t know if he completely believes this, but he’s lousy at potions and Draco is being pretty convincing. “So you think someone wanted you to turn? Why?”

“Keep up, Potter,” Draco says, which Harry doesn’t think is strictly necessary, considering that they’re on the same team. “No one knows I’m a werewolf. I wasn’t being targeted, my clients are. I brew for sixty four werewolves, and if I hadn’t taken the potion early, I wouldn’t know there was anything wrong with it. If we can’t figure out what’s going on soon, then there’s no guaranteeing they’ll have their potion ready by next month.”

“Oh no,” Harry says.

“Oh no indeed,” Draco says.

“We should start looking into this as soon as possible. Would you be able to file the official report in the morning?”

Draco sips at the last dregs of his milkshake and doesn’t respond. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Harry is still moderately impressed by the speed with which he’s put away so much ice cream.

“Right,” Harry says, processing. He realizes Draco has no idea that Dara knows, and doesn’t think he’ll be too happy to hear about it. “We can’t do this off the record. We won’t be able to prosecute anyone.”

Draco scowls, but stays quiet.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and means it. “My partner already knows, she was there when we tracked you down, but I’ll make sure no one else finds out.”

Draco glowers, fussing anxiously with his straw. “Will she tell? I’m aware that it’s a story. I’m surprised Rita Skeeter hasn’t smoked me out yet.”

“That hag,” Harry says bitterly. “Dara won’t tell. She says that her favorite great-aunt is the baba yaga, and I think she’s being serious.”

Draco raises his faint eyebrows and Harry is relieved to find he looks somewhat mollified. He thinks that the Draco of their sixth year or even right after the war would have bolted by now. He still looks like he was recently dragged from a swamp, but he’s not going anywhere. Harry is still turning it over in his head, what it means that there’s a version of Draco that wants to do the right thing, even though it’s neither easy nor glamorous.

“Thank you, Potter.” Draco says quietly. “For all of it.”

“Just my job,” Harry says, even sitting with Draco at a diner at 4 AM isn’t really his job. He drenches the last few bites of his skillet in hot sauce, mentally recategorizing his cases to make space for this one. Behind them, a drunken group of teenage wizards are trying to transform one of the diner plates into a toad as Lee keeps a proud eye on them. “I’m on emergency response tomorrow night too, do you want to meet the morning after to go over possible suspects?”

Draco is looking crossly at himself in the window, having noticed that the back part of his hair is sticking straight up. It doesn’t look all that different from the way it had in the fuzzy morning light when he’d woken up at Grimmauld Place. Harry wishes he didn’t have such a vivid memory of how vulnerable and awful Draco had looked in his sleep.

“If you’re buying,” Draco says, which is a little ridiculous considering that Draco is, historically, quite rich. Harry is also historically quite rich, but Draco has been much more of a cunt about it.

“Lee is going to think…” Harry trails off, unable to say exactly what Lee is going to think if they show up together in the morning.

Draco shrugs. “What will they do, put us on the front page of the Prophet?”

“I would like to avoid that actually,” Harry says. “If only because I like this place and Rita Skeeter is not allowed to know about nice things.”

Draco doesn’t answer for a long moment. “I know a café we can go to. You’ve got to have a notebook in that thing, correct?” Harry rustles around his bag, handing Draco the self-inking quill and pad so he can scribble a name and address in his pointy handwriting. “Meet me at nine thirty?”

Harry nods, willing himself not to think it’s a date. It’s very obviously a business meeting, the actual opposite of a date, but his brain keeps going ‘date?’ without his permission. Sitting across from Draco now, he feels a little foolish for being so terrified to bring him here, like he’d expected Draco to snap and start dramatically performing the time Harry fell from his broomstick third year.

“How was everything?” Lee asks, sidling up to their table. It’s still dark outside, but the deeply quiet part of night that’s already thinking about becoming dawn in soft purples. The restaurant has quieted too, only a few stray night-shifters drinking coffee and shuffling newspapers over the hum of the jukebox.

“Still fantastic,” Harry says, shoveling the last few bites of potato into his mouth before Lee can take his plate away.

Draco nods, looking, for lack of a better word, friendly. “Are you French, Jordan?”

Lee looks surprised. “Half, actually.”

“Your crepes show it.”

“Merci beaucoup,” Lee says.

“Je t’en prie,” Draco says. “La famille étendue de Malfoy est française.”

Lee looks beside himself. “Crêpes gratuites pour vous la prochaine fois que vous visitez si vous parlez français avec moi.”

“Je serais content de le faire,” Draco replies, and Harry can’t understand a word they’re saying, but they’re both looking so pleased that Harry can’t really bring himself to feel left out.

“Separate checks?” Lee asks, levitating their used dishes above his shoulder.

“I’ve got it,” Harry says, then hurries to get his explanation out. “Malfoy’s helping me with a case, I had to bribe him here.”

“Really looked like he suffered through every moment,” Lee says, drawing up the check with a muttered spell and a wave of his wand. “Cheers lads, thanks for coming in. Harry, see you soon, be sure to bring your frenchy boyfriend back. Against all odds I’ve decided I like him.”

“Lee.”

“Hazza,” Lee says fondly, letting the check float down onto the table as he takes their dirty dishes back to the kitchen.

“They really were impeccable crepes,” Draco says. “And I’m a snob.”

“You are?” Harry asks, and Draco makes a face at him.

Harry digs a few coins out of his bag, setting them on the check, which wraps itself neatly into a star and floats back over to the kitchen. “Want me to Apparate you home?”

Draco nods reluctantly. “Losing my vital organs would be more of an indignity than one more side-along with you.”

Harry laughs at his tone. “You make it sound like a toss up.”

“It is,” Draco says, sliding out of the booth. Harry realizes as they make their way out that at some point, Draco has transfigured something into a tasteful pair of loafers, which is so fussy and typical that he can’t look at them without smiling.

It’s still raining outside in a regular little drizzle that makes overlapping patterns in the puddles. Draco tells him his address, yawning as he takes Harry’s arm. They swirl through space with a crack and then land in another rainy part of London, one of the quieter offshoots of Diagon Alley next to a dark line of shops with the occasional warmly lit second floor.

“See you Sunday morning,” Harry says, a raindrop catching the lens of his glasses, another on the tip of his nose.

Draco nods, another yawn passing over his face as he unlocks his door. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Thanks for trusting me.”

Draco laughs under his breath, finally getting the door open. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“I’m doing my best,” Harry says.

Draco nods, pausing in the doorway. “I know. Goodnight, Potter.”

“Goodnight.”

Harry remains on the doorstep for a long minute after the door has shut, an odd, lingering feeling growing in his chest as he looks up at the sky, heavy with clouds, the moon out of sight.

xx

The café Draco has brought him to is so perfect for casework that Harry is a little miffed he didn’t know about it before. It looks like any chintzy little tea parlour, but a combination of well placed walls, large vases and sculptures, and clever privacy spells means that once you’ve sat down, its nearly entirely impossible to see or hear any of the other diners. It’s nestled in one of the far corners of Diagon Alley between a bakery run by someone’s 900 year old gran and a Muggle tchotchke store alarmingly full of furbies. One glance in the window had been enough for Harry to know which ones he would be picking out for Dara and Ron.

Draco has arrived to their meeting with some preliminary detective work done and wastes no time in walking Harry through his list of potential suspects. He’s cleared a space in the middle of the table for the three newspaper clippings and a neat little notebook where he’s recorded pertinent information. There are three ingredients in the lycanthopy potion unique to that brew, and so he’s convinced that one of those suppliers must be responsible for the tampering.

Recovered from his lycanthropic jaunt, he’s as sharp, glittering, and unforgiving as a dagger and it’s a bit much to deal with, even over coffee. He keeps making Harry want to smile.

“Personally, I suspect Calypso,” Draco says, pointing to a picture of a brown haired witch blithely cuddling what appears to be a full sized wolf. “She supplies the lupine saliva. I’ve been working with her since I opened the shop, but she’s from a weird old pureblood family and I wouldn’t be at all shocked if she was behind something like this.”

Harry agrees that something about the unbridled joy in her eyes is a little bit off putting, and he scrawls her name and particulars down.

Draco picks up the photo, giving it a suspicious glance. “She’s one of the only vendors of wolf-based potion ingredients, but she’s a bit too into wolves for my taste.”

“Too wolfy even for you?” Harry teases, and Draco makes a performative little gagging noise which is so unexpected that Harry nearly chokes on his omelet.

“I am not wolfy. I feel that in light of my considerable difficulties it’s actually impressive how very not wolfy I am,” Draco says loftily. This isn’t wrong, considering that, particularly in comparison to Harry, Draco is nearly hairless. Even so, there is something about his smile that does sometimes seem a bit too toothy.

“If she’s the only vendor, would she supply to other potioneers?”

“Almost certainly,” Draco says, and Harry marks it down as he holds up a photo of his next suspect. “Opal McGovern is definitely fine. She’s one of mother’s new pureblood friends, and is definitely just a batty old lady.” Draco waves a photo of what appears to be a gray-haired Stevie Nicks in dress robes standing in a butterfly enclosure. She has a large, pink butterfly resting on her head. “She’s my newest supplier, but I don’t think she’s the issue…” Draco trails off, watching the picture with a furrow in his brow. “I think she just really likes bugs,” he says finally, as if this is the most confusing explanation he’s ever been faced with.

“Bugs are cool,” Harry says, but without much enthusiasm. Draco gives him a skeptical look, and he shrugs. Luna has been running a column in the Quibbler on Neville’s coolest mushroom finds from abroad, so he has more than the average amount of energy for indulging the weird, random things people love.

“Last suspect is Rob Spreckleroy.” Draco says. The wizard in the third picture looks like the plaster garden gnomes that Muggles have, but in greens and browns. “Halfbood and a long time supplier, so doesn’t seem likely that he’d do something like this, but who knows. He runs a wild frog sanctuary, which I’m not sure is strictly legal. I can’t imagine the climate charms he’s running to produce tropical conditions in rural England, but I don’t ask questions I don’t want to know the answers to.”

“Fair enough,” Harry says, taking down the last of the information. He’s impressed by how quickly Draco had compiled the suspect list, and the photos are a nice touch. “This a good place to start, hopefully one of these will pan out.”

He knows that it would be idiotic to say something like ‘I wonder what you’d have been like as an Auror,’ though he does wonder if Draco would have had a knack for it. Not a can-do, no-fear partner like Dara, but careful, keen. Even in the years where they’d been at each other’s throats, no one would have said that Draco wasn’t a worthy adversary.

Draco looks quietly pleased with himself, eating a piece of the croissant he’d been ignoring in favor of presenting his evidence. Harry flips back in his case notes, finding the questions he’d brought to ask Draco before Harry had known he’d gone full amateur detective.

“I have a few more questions, if you don’t mind,” Harry says, as Draco continues disassembling his croissant, nodding at Harry to continue. “Is there anyone other than you who has access to your shop?”

Draco nods, looking unconcerned. “Yes, but she’s not a suspect.”

Harry does his best to look demonstrably unimpressed. “Malfoy.”

“What? She’s not.”

“Everyone is a suspect,” Harry says, and Draco rolls his eyes.

“Fine, Professor Moody,” he says frostily. It’s the most like his old self he’s sounded all morning. “My assistant Jasmine has a key, but there’s no way she’s involved. She’s fifteen. I realize that by fifteen you had defeated the Dark Lord multiple times, but I’m not using you as an example of normal fifteen-year-old behavior.”

“She’s still at Hogwarts? How can she be your assistant?” Harry asks, remembering the frustration of summers when he still had the Trace, how he would have given anything even just to do his homework.

“She’s a Slytherin,” Draco says with ill-concealed pride, as if this explains the bulk of it. “She has special permission from Hogwarts to study potions with me during holidays since she’s still so young. Muggleborn, top of her class, future Prefect this year. She was personally recommended to me by Professor Gupta last summer and has been working with me ever since, she’s above suspicion.”

Hearing the word ‘Muggleborn’ come out of Draco’s mouth after years of the other one takes him by surprise, even though at this point it probably shouldn’t. His father had always paid lip service to doing the right thing when he was trying to clear his name and get back in the Ministry’s good graces, but the way Draco had said it, like it was normal, reminds Harry that Draco has always been a better man that his father was.

“She’d have had to have a pretty good reason to meddle with your work,” Harry says, still writing her name on the list of suspects. “Or it’s been a long game.”

“There’s no long game!” Draco protests. “She’s tiny! Practically a dust mite!”

“Calm down, I’m mostly kidding.” Harry puts up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “She’s probably not a suspect, but I do need to talk to her just in case. She might know something and even if she doesn’t, we need to keep her in the loop to make sure she’s safe.”

Draco’s already impressively pale face loses its pink tinge as he registers what Harry’s said. “You think she’s in danger?”

“No! No, no! That is not what I said,” Harry says quickly, noting the slightly manic look in Draco’s eyes. “I’m just saying that as long as we don’t know what’s going on, we need to take precautions. How are your wards?”

“Impermeable,” Draco says, holding his tea cup, which has jackalopes printed around the rim, very close to his chest. “I’m alerted if anyone even tries to get in.”

“You’ll forgive my skepticism,” Harry says. “You’re not the first person to tell me that and be wrong.”

Draco looks affronted, which Harry should have expected. “Are you quite finished insulting my spellwork, or did you have more you wanted to say?”

Harry rolls his eyes, which Draco pretends not to notice. “I’m not insulting your spellwork, I’m doing my job. Will you let me check your wards or are you going to make this difficult?”

Draco is sipping his tea rather aggressively, which Harry doesn’t know how he’s managing. Harry doesn’t think he’s ever drank tea from a bunny teacup with anything but general benevolence. “Fine, but expect my ‘I told you so’ in one to two business days.”

“Looking forward to it,” Harry says sincerely. “Does tomorrow work?”

“No,” Draco says. “We’re closed Mondays and Tuesdays. And Jasmine is busy tomorrow. She and her alarming friends are having…“ Draco clears his throat, looking pained. “A pool party. Day after should be fine.”

“Great,” Harry says, doing his level best to stifle a laugh at Draco’s astonishingly dry delivery of the most detested “pool” “party.” “I’ll talk to Dara about starting some questioning, we’ll see who gets back to us first. In the meantime, do you think you could try and work a bit of a potions miracle?”

“Potentially,” Draco says, though he already looks markedly less venomous. It’s a little charming, really, that Draco is still so easy to wind up and also so easy to placate with a well placed compliment. “What sort of miracle?”

“We need some way to figure out if the rest of the potioneers brewing the lycanthropy potion have been affected, but we can’t do that without some way to test their batches,” Harry explains. “I don’t know what that test looks like, since I’ve never listened to any of our potions consultants in my entire life, but I’m sure you know. The faster you can do that, the faster we can figure out the scope of what we’re dealing with and hopefully help us figure out who’s behind this.”

Draco is nodding, a hard, thoughtful look in his eyes. Harry can see him turning the problem over in his head, nodding slowly as he begins to unravel it. “I can do that,” he says slowly. “It shouldn’t take too long, provided my hunch is correct.”

“Cheers,” Harry says, raising his cup of coffee in the direction of Draco’s teacup. Harry looks down at the tablecloth, where the wolf in Calypso’s arms turns to stare at the camera over and over, her grin not quite sane enough for his liking. “Where did you get these pictures? Did you just have them lying around?”

Some of the twinkle returns to Draco’s expression. “Copied them from the Prophet. I was at the library archives yesterday doing some general research.”

“Nice,” Harry says. A compliment turns over in his throat, something he doesn’t quite know how to say. Draco had always been at the top of their class, a prefect, always just under Hermione, but Harry doesn’t think he really understood what that would mean until that moment, watching Draco sit across from him, looking pleased with himself.

“I think you’re enjoying this too much,” Harry says finally, knowing that opening up that can of flobberworms won’t end well.

Draco gives him a superior look. “This is my first investigation, Potter, and I think it’s suiting me splendidly. It’s just like those Hagatha Christie mysteries, I’m a regular Warlock Holmes.”

Harry nearly chokes on his breakfast, but doesn’t press the point.

xx

Dara taps his desk, jolting him from a mental tangent involving the dragon smuggling case they’ve just started working on that has Harry half convinced that the dragons must be leaving the country through an underground tunnel system.

“What are you daydreamin’ about, HP?” Dara asks, perching like a bird in one of the chairs he has arranged in front of his desk, her strappy boots squeaking against the leather.

“Dragons,” Harry replies seriously, and she snorts.

“Hope you’re daydreaming us a suspect,” she says. “Though you’re shit at divination, aren’t you?”

“Proudly,” Harry replies, as she shrugs.

“I’ll read your tarot some time and then we’ll see who’s smug,” she says, then flips her notepad open. “Got the interview with Opal McGovern.”

Harry raises his eyebrows. “Anything interesting?”

“More or less, no. She seems like a weird old bat to me. She served me tea in the Butterfly Orb, which is this huge butterfly enclosure she has behind her house.” Dara chews her fingernail, scanning her notes. “Old money by the looks of her estate, but her husband died young with no heirs. I just don’t see a motive.”

“What did you ask her about?”

“Just her clients, I said one of them was under investigation but didn’t specify that she was a suspect. She didn’t seem to question it.” Dara gestures dismissively, giving a twitch of an eyeroll. “She went on a thirty-minute-long tangent about which bugs she personally thinks are the most beautiful. It could not be derailed. I tried. Trying to get her off topic just made it worse.”

Harry frowns. “Could be a diversion tactic.”

Dara shrugs, her filmy purple scarf floating down her shoulder. “It seemed genuine to me. You’re welcome to look into her some more if you’d like, if you fancy a two hour long treatise on caterpillars.” Dara sighs, looks up at the ceiling in despair. “Sorry. I’m traumatized from how much I know about cocoons now. We could probably go back and see what she was up to during the war or if she’s ever on the record talking about how she feels about werewolves, but I really think she’s just a rich old lady.”

Harry nods, hoping they aren’t missing something. “That’s what Malfoy thinks too. No past charges, so I can’t figure out why she would intentionally tamper with anything.”

“Exactly, no motive,” Dara agrees, then scrunches up her nose. “We sure this is on purpose?”

“Malfoy says it has to be sabotage, and he made a compelling enough case for it.” Harry shrugs. “He does know potions, you have to give him that. It drove me nuts back in school that he wasn’t worse at it.”

“Because you’re a catastrophe at potions?”

“Because I’m a catastrophe at potions,” Harry confirms.

Dara nods slowly, playing with the heavy yellow broach she has clipped to her skirt. “Could his judgement be clouded by paranoia? It’s a bit intense, isn’t it, to blame one batch of faulty potion on foul play?”

“A bit,” Harry says, turning the idea over in his brain. Draco hadn’t seemed paranoid, back at the diner or in the warm light of the café. He’d seemed canny, sharp. “I trust Malfoy. I think he knows what he’s talking about and if he thinks it’s foul play, then it’s foul play.”

Dara does a bit of a double take. “You trust him.”

Harry tries to wiggle out of her piercing stare. “We’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with once he finishes up the potion test, then we can see how many other shops are affected and go from there. In the meantime, we still have to treat it as an emergency whether we trust his word or not.”

“I mean yeah, obviously,” Dara says, backing off. “Of course we’re still going to treat it as an emergency, I’m not saying we aren’t.”

They’d spent the first half of the morning going back and forth about possible contingency plans if they couldn’t crack the case in time, trying to figure out if there would be enough potion to go around if it turned out everyone’s batch was contaminated, trying to work out if anyone would be put in danger while they waited, trying to work out how difficult it would be to import the potion from other countries if they had to. It had left them stressed and irritable, and only more sure that if they couldn’t crack it in time, there would be more werewolves out on the next full moon than anyone was prepared for.

Dara makes a face. “I just wonder about Malfoy. He’s a git. Can’t trust gits.”

Harry, with moderate alarm, tries to think of Draco’s last documented instance of being a git and comes up with nothing. He wonders if deliberately speaking French in front of Harry counts, then decides it probably doesn’t. He wisely decides not to share this, and instead changes the subject.

“How was the recital by the way?”

“Oh stellar,” Dara says, sliding down so she’s sitting almost-normally in the cracked armchair. “Best I’ve seen in toddler ballet since ’92.”

Harry snorts. “Famous ballet critic you are.”

“I’m very well known,” Dara brags. “The Prophet’s been courting me for an interview for eons.”

“Isn’t that because you work with the famous Harry Potter?” Harry asks.

“Him? He’s just a hack.”

Harry’s about to defend his honor when Ron ducks into his office as if pursued. “Millence Filbin sighting, requesting cover,” he says, locking the door behind him.

“Request granted,” Harry says. “Happy to provide asylum.”

“What’s he done now?” Dara asks. Their daily run ins with Millence Filbin, the most irritating and horrible secretary known to Wizardkind, would be untenable if they weren’t so ridiculous they crossed over into hilarity.

“I was fixing a cup of coffee, he sidled up to ask me my opinion on ethical polyamory, I pretended I had food poisoning and needed to vomit, and then I ran,” Ron says. “A harrowing experience. When will that man learn basic conversational boundaries. Or hygiene.”

“A surprisingly forward-thinking offering from Filbin. Last time he asked me if I had any experience with ‘rashes.’ Not any particular rash. Just in general,” Dara says. “And the kicker is that as the proud owner of a toddler, I do have experience with rashes, but you know what? Not for Goat Cheese Filbin.”

“Do you suppose that if we kidnapped elder Councilman Filbin we could negotiate the firing and possible permanent murder of the younger Secretary Filbin for his release?” Ron proposes, looking a tetch too excited about the prospect.

“If only,” Harry says.

“Fucking nepotism,” Ron says, then reaches into his bag, bringing the tufty ponytail at the back of his head into Harry’s sightline. “Oh, I also have a letter for you, Harry”

It’s barely a letter, only a piece of paper folded in thirds and spelled closed, with his name and address scrawled in a spidery hand. To be fair, what’s on Ron’s head is barely a ponytail either. “Fantastic showing from your ponytail today, Ron,” Harry says, continuing his multi-week comedy special regarding Ron’s new hair.

“I’ll thank you to piss off about my ponytail,” Ron says, “or I won’t do you any more favors.”

“You’re all talk,” Harry says. “Dinner next week?”

Ron nods, pretending to weigh the idea. “I guess you’re still invited, bring wine and I’ll forgive you for any and all slights against my hair.”

“Done,” Harry says. “Tufty.”

“Eat shit,” Ron says.

“I think it looks quite cool,” Dara says conciliatory.

“Thank you, Dara, I appreciate your support.” Ron gives up the act, flashing Harry a grin. “I think the coast is clear, so I’ve gotta dash. I’ve a chat with a suspect at ten, but I’ll see you for dinner, Harry.”

“Good luck!” Harry calls after him, returning his gaze to the letter and unfolding it carefully. It’s only a few lines long, and Harry immediately realizes why he knows the handwriting.

_Potter,_

_Found some interesting things in the Diagon Alley archives. I’ll be here until four if you have time._

_Sincerely_ ,

_Draco Malfoy_

Harry glances at his watch, then hands Dara the letter, which she scans with a low cackle that Harry isn’t going to try decoding.

“See you tomorrow then,” she says, tossing the paper back onto Harry’s desk and standing up. “I’ll try and make some headway on our paperwork, you slacker.”

“I do paperwork,” Harry says, pointing a stern finger at her. “Besides, this is casework.”

Dara rolls her eyes. “No you don’t, and this has old flame written all over it.”

“Brave words from someone quoting Mrs. Weasley’s romance novels,” Harry says, packing his things back into his work bag.

“He’s fit for a dude,” Dara says. “Pretty. I’m not blaming you for sleeping with him, I’m just saying.”

“Dara honestly, it was maybe four or five times,” Harry says, then flushes. “It’s a case, not a date.”

Dara cackles, this time much less quietly. “Four or five, oh sweet Circe. Have fun, you idiot.”

“It’s casework!” Harry protests as she returns to her desk, thinking that clarifying that they’d made out about five times but only actually went home together twice would be shooting himself in the foot. He decides to make his way to the Apparation point before he says anything too stupid. He wonders vaguely, as he makes the long walk to the elevator, if the ease with which everyone makes a big deal out of it has anything to do with the actual reality of how it was, or more to do with how nosy and dramatic his friends are.

The Diagon Alley Library, when he finally pushes through the wide double doors and into the glass-dome atrium, is quiet enough that he can hear the turning of pages and his footsteps as the door slips shut behind him. A few clouds passing overhead cast moving shadows on the lush, olive colored carpet and the endless stacks of books, and Harry scans the area for a familiar blond head as he walks over to the reception desk.

“Could you tell me where the archives are?” he asks, prompting the elderly witch at the counter to squint up at him from under a pile of gray braids speckled with delicate gold insects. When he looks at one too closely, it winks its wings at him.

“Three flights down,” she says, in a voice that grates like rocks tumbling against each other.

Harry thanks her and starts down the winding staircase just behind the reference desk, the wooden stairs curling down the center of the library like the spine of a conch shell. When he finally makes it to the third floor down, he spots Draco, flipping through a file cabinet near the front. He has on a pair of wire-framed reading glasses that he pushes up intermittently, dark green pants and a button down, the sleeves rolled up so Harry can see his elbows. There’s a bit of pale green fabric done up in a bow where a tie should be, which Harry thinks is maybe wizard fashion but makes him look like a wrapped gift. Harry is planning on teasing him that he looks the part of amateur detective, but when Draco glances up from his work he feels his words die in his throat. In the low light, he looks just like Harry remembers him looking after wine had clouded his vision: like he was so clean and vaguely glowing.

“Hey,” Harry says, coming around to where Draco is thumbing through a file cabinet of old issues of the Prophet, repeating to himself that he’s here for casework and nothing else. He wants to pretend that he doesn’t know why he has to keep reminding himself that.

“Wasn’t sure you’d be able to make it. I found a few things,” Draco says, giving him a whisper of a smile and leading him over to a square table boasting a large, green table lamp.

“You’re helping me skiv off paperwork,” Harry says.

“One can only hope the Auror department doesn’t fall apart in your absence,” Draco says mildly, sitting down in the worn chair as Harry does the same. Draco lays a few newspapers on the table, Harry’s eye catching on a large, old advertisement for the Nimbus 2000, in which the broom rockets into the frame and then out again in a flash. “I did some digging. It was mostly unhelpful, but a few things seemed relevant.” He points a long finger at a headline that reads ‘Pureblood Heiress Calypso Rowan Isn’t Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.’

“That’s so—”

“Tacky, I realize,” Draco says. “I could think of three better headlines in the next five minutes. ‘Calypso Rowan is No Sheep In Wolf’s Clothing.’” He pauses. “No, that’s tacky as well. But that’s why I don’t work for the Prophet.”

“Calypso Rowan Feels an Overly Personal Connection to the Celestina Warbeck song _My Sweet Werewolf Lover_ ,” Harry snickers.

“Calypso Rowan Cares Too Much About Wolves and This Is Your Problem Now Too, Dear Reader,” Draco says, his face completely serious but a mischievous spark in his eyes.

“Calypso Rowan Will Not Shut the Fuck Up About Wolves and You Have to Read About It In The Morning Paper When You’re Just Trying to Enjoy Your Coffee in Peace,” Harry adds, receiving an unpleasant look from an exhausted-looking witch two rows over when his laughter tips past library-quiet.

Draco smooths the amusement from his expression, lifting the paper and beginning to read. “ _I think we should all be wolves_ , Calypso says, a dreamy look in her stunning, chocolate colored eyes, her long eyelashes fluttering against her alabaster cheekbones.”

“Merlin.”

“I know. Alabaster, really?” Draco says with a pinched expression. “ _I wish we could all turn into wolves at night and run with them. They understand the world so beautifully, I think we would be better as a race if we could spend time as wolves. It would be a privilege, an honor, to be one of them_.” Draco looks up. “Is that not concerning?”

“It’s a bit much,” Harry says, resting his elbows on the table. “Enough to think she’d tamper with the potion?”

Draco shrugs. “I mean you never know, this interview was years ago. Maybe she’s calmed down.”

“Or radicalized.”

“Indeed.” Draco frowns at the article. “It seems out there and I don’t like her tone.”

“Me neither,” Harry says, mulling the problem over. Even as long as he’s been in the wizarding world, he can’t always wrap his head around some of it, the way that people’s prejudices morph in and out of logic. How Ron, who never thought twice about Harry being Indian, would be so callous about Hagrid’s mum being a giant or would mistrust even Professor Lupin. “She’s a pureblood?”

Draco nods, scanning further into the article. “We are, fortunately, and somewhat shockingly, not particularly related.”

“It seems so strange to me that the same pureblood idiots who hate Muggleborns and Muggles would be okay turning people into werewolves,” Harry says, chewing on his lip and working through the problem as he talks. “I can’t wrap my head around it. Either you care about blood purity or you don’t, I don’t understand.”

“This is in no way normal pureblood behavior,” Draco says. He frowns, watching the picture, another alarming shot of Calypso ogling a wolf. Her expression reminds him a little bit of the ravenous way that Hermione looks at a well-organized stack of documents, and it’s a much nicer look on Hermione. “Well, I wish it wasn’t.”

“I mean obviously it’s not every pureblood,” Harry concedes. “I’m sure there are complicated politics behind it that only Hermione understands, but this isn’t the only example. Like, why freak out about Professor Lupin but then let Fenrir Greyback just do whatever he wants?”

Draco is regarding him seriously. “There’s a lot of delusion involved. For example: would I have let werewolves run around my childhood home? Absolutely not. Would Lucius Malfoy prefer that werewolves run around my childhood home if it meant he never had to look at a Muggleborn again? Oh, certainly.” He delivers the last part with an impressive amount of bitterness. “None of it holds up upon scrutiny, it’s just baseless fear of the non-magic world and of anything different than you.”

“I never thought I’d hear that from you,” Harry says, before he can think better of it.

Draco has an odd little expression on his face, something between stricken and how Neville used to look any time he tried to answer a question in class. When he speaks, it’s urgent and careful in the quiet of the archives. “I don’t believe any of those things anymore. I know you’re giving me a second chance, and who knows if I deserve it, but I’m really trying to be better.”

“Malfoy, hey, Draco,” Harry says, watching as Draco begins to acquire this alarming intensity to his eyes, like he’s about to do something insane, like try to apologize again or make a grand gesture. “Don’t freak out, it’s okay. I know.”

Harry pictures reaching over to give Draco the kind of awkward conciliatory pats that he and Ron used to give each other before they figured out how to hug, but doesn’t think he could possibly manage to be casual about it. He’s also vaguely concerned it would cause Draco to go full wolf and take his hand off.

Draco looks down at his hands, folding them neatly in front of him. Even when Draco isn’t flushed his skin is still a soft pink, like the blood is still too close to the surface. “I suppose I should call you Harry like everyone else,” he says, making it sound like a question. Harry is stunned into silence and he rushes to explain himself. “Just, you called me Draco just then, I thought—“

“Sure, yeah, absolutely, that feels normal,” Harry says. “Draco.”

Draco is looking at him like he can’t figure out if he should be making fun of him or not. Harry thinks if Draco did make fun of him, he would quite deserve it. “Quite normal,” Draco says finally. He opens his mouth again like he’s going to say ‘Harry,’ then seems to think better of it.

“Thanks for finding those clippings,” Harry says a little too loudly. The witch a table over glares at him over her enormous stacks of books and he brings his voice back down where it’s supposed to be. “I never make it over to the archives for cases, Hermione is always yelling at me about it. This could be really helpful information.”

Draco smiles, thin lipped and hiding his teeth, but not cold. “Don’t thank me. The first night, I thought I was going to have to trick you into helping me. I’m glad I haven’t had to.”

“Do you think you could trick me into it?” Harry asks, realizing only after its out of his mouth that it sounds like a challenge.

Draco raises his eyebrows. “I was going to try,” he says, which isn’t any way to decline.

“I’m not just helping you, it’s a case,” Harry says, though he’d camped out in Head Auror Johnson’s office wheedling until he’d been assigned it, taking on two leadless robberies in the process. He’d convinced himself it was to protect Draco’s privacy, but he knew at the end of the day that other Aurors would have done that. It had just seemed like the right thing to do. “We can’t have sixty four werewolves out and about in London. You were enough.”

“Quite.” Draco says, going pink. “I actually found something on Opal as well, in a similar vein.”

“Oh?” Harry asks, watching the photo of Calypso stroking the ears of a wolf so he doesn’t focus on the way the flush on Draco’s cheeks creeps to the shells of his ears.

“McGovern is her married name, or I would have noticed it earlier. While searching for information about her I found her marriage announcement. Her full name is Opal McGovern née Mulciber. Half of her family were Death Eaters and her sister, Aileen Mulciber, was turned during the war by Greyback. If you remember, he wanted to turn as many people as he could in order to complete a takeover.” Draco’s expression twists with disgust. “Aileen is in Azkaban for life, but it would be a motive.”

“I wonder if we could find out if they still talk,” Harry muses.

“She has a no-contact sentence,” he says, a cold kind of diplomacy in his tone, like he’s tamping down some large and unwieldy feeling. “I’m surprised she’s lasted so long, it should be a death sentence.”

Harry nods, remembering with a pang that he almost hadn’t testified in favor of Draco or Narcissa after the war. It had only been the memory of Sirius and Hagrid after Azkaban that had changed his mind, and the thought of two people he blamed but didn’t despise left there to rot.

“Still, it is a motive,” Harry says, considering it. “Dara already talked to her and didn’t have much to report, but I can send her back for a second opinion.”

“Probably a good idea,” Draco says, looking distant. “The Mulcibers were a terrible family.”

At this point, Harry can barely tell the Death Eaters’ names apart, all the faces and atrocities running together, but Draco looks as if he can remember names and actions far too well.

“I’ll let Dara know, hopefully it’s a coincidence or we can weasel some information out of her,” Harry says. Draco is listening to him, but fiddling absently with his quill like part of his mind is still caught elsewhere. “We’re still trying to get information on Rob, no leads yet. I’d been meaning to ask you, when you have your suppliers make deliveries, do you pick those up, or does Jasmine?”

“Unless she’s not in or there’s something unusual with the order, that’s something she usually does,” Draco says, finally meeting Harry’s gaze. “I’ll take this month’s to see if I notice anything strange.”

“Great, my thoughts exactly,” Harry says.

Draco begins to collect the newspapers. “Do you think we have a chance of solving it before the next full moon?”

Harry remembers his conversation with Dara, and knows the answer is only ‘maybe’ as he begins to nod. “The leads you found are really good, hopefully one of them pans out.” Draco doesn’t respond at first, and Harry realizes that the emotion lurking in his expression is fear. It’s why he says the next bit, even though he doesn’t know it for sure and shouldn’t be promising anything. “We’ll solve it, it’ll be alright.”

Draco nods, seeming like he actually believes what Harry’s told him. “I hate feeling like there’s nothing I can do.”

“I know,” Harry says, thinking about how often they’ve both been helpless. It’s better now that they’re older and can say no when adults can tell them to do things, but sometimes Harry hears about new case assignments and still feels a rush of belated guilt, like he should have been able to stop it all from happening. It’s funny that Draco should know that feeling, because Ron always calls it Harry’s urge to save the world. “We can figure it out.”

Draco smiles, a soft one. “You have such a way of saying it.”

“You goaded me into it,” Harry says, looking away so Draco won’t see the way his cheeks have heated up. “How’s your potions miracle coming along?”

“Good actually,” Draco says. “It’s brewing now, should be done by tomorrow.”

“That’s good news,” Harry says.

“Depends on what it tells us, I suppose,” Draco says. “Jasmine is excited to meet you, so do try not to be quite as slovenly as usual.”

Harry makes sure Draco can tell he’s rolling his eyes. “I’ll try not to ruin the shining image of me the Prophet has constructed.”

“She reads the Quibbler, she just thinks it’s cool you know The Luna Lovegood,” Draco says. “She’ll probably ask you to get her an autograph, but you shouldn’t listen to her.”

“I’ll get an autographed copy sent over as long as you promise it’s not just for you,” Harry says.

“I’d write Luna myself,” Draco says primly, his glance flicking down to his watch. “I should go, I have dinner plans with Pansy and her new beau. I’m to either give her my approval or send him away like the others.”

Harry has an abrupt mental image of Draco imperiously waving away a poor, unsuspecting young wizard as Pansy presides at his left elbow. “That seems bizarre to me.”

“She just likes to put them through the wringer to prove they aren’t just in it for her money. It’s mostly an act,” Draco says, losing some of his affected tone. Harry wonders how much of what Draco did and does is an act, and thinks with a dip in his stomach of how his eyes sparkle when he’s being earnest. “But I’m very intimidating.”

“You are not intimidating,” Harry protests, his eyes catching on Draco’s wrists, which are so delicate he almost can’t stand to look at them too long.

Draco, at his glance, lets his face fall expressionless, his voice clicking right back into his old drawl, his head at a tilt like a cat and his eyes hard as flint. “Did you have something you were trying to say, Potter?”

Harry wants to laugh, but tamps it down. “I see what you mean.”

“Fortunate,” Draco says dismissively, before letting his face shift back to his other, gentler expression, something pleased in his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve lost it.”

“I’d be surprised if he lasted through appetizers,” Harry affirms. Draco gathers up their newspapers, a smile making his face terribly soft.

xx

Jasmine has brought Harry extremely lumpy, homemade cookies, rendering him so charmed and speechless that for the first few minutes he just gapes about them while Draco gives him the tour. Draco’s potion shop is low-lit and cozy, the windows blacked out by long, green curtains that give the room the same underwater glow as the Slytherin common room. There’s a live gecko in a tank that Draco introduces as ‘Camembert’ and shelves full of potions in dark blue bottles, each labeled in Draco’s neat spidery handwriting.

The majority of Jasmine’s initial questions for him are about Luna, though she does ask Harry if he thinks that Hermione is actually on track to be the youngest Minister of Magic or if she’s going for something else, like Head of Muggle Liaisons or astronaut. Draco has to have the concept of astronauts explained to him, which Harry and Jasmine find so hysterical that Harry nearly forgets why he’s there in the first place.

As Harry runs his preliminary survey of the wards, he’s pleasantly impressed to find that Draco had been right about their quality. The spellwork is clever and layered, filled with evil little traps and switchbacks, and their threads indicate to him everyone who’s passed through them over the course of the month in a slow trickle of detailed information. Harry is particularly impressed by a trap door charm that sends any wood-be burglar down into a crevice where they’ll be very stuck until rescued. 

“You both meant the actual moon?” Draco asks, looking up from his cauldron where he’s minding the test potion. “The moon moon?”

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy, the MOON MOON,” Jasmine says, sharing a look with Harry as Draco continues to mull over all of this new information he’s just received about the existence of the moon landing.

“I do think this is an elaborate prank, but I’ll allow it,” Draco says, popping back to the store room, leaving his cauldron bubbling happily.

“Is he always like this?” Harry asks.

“Oh yes,” Jasmine says conspiratorially. “I said we should make him a MySpace, but he won’t do it. Then I said that if he doesn’t make one we’ll have to watch the cinematic masterpiece Spice World and he said that he doesn’t have to do either of them because he’s my boss. But he’s wrong. Eventually, I will wear him down, and I will win, and Spice World will triumph.”

“Isn’t Spice World a bad movie?” Harry asks tentatively, as Jasmine gives him a pitying look.

“You’re both philistines,” she says. She’s wearing an eclectic combination of wizarding robes and Muggle accessories in a variety of colors which seem to be coordinated with her eyeshadow. Harry had been expecting her to be way more uptight given that she’s going to be a prefect, but she reminds him of a whip-smart, black Lavender Brown so, in short, entirely too small and powerful.

“Probably. I do like…” Harry racks his brain for any of the songs Dara plays for him on the radio on the rare occasion they get to borrow cars from the Ministry. “I like Oasis.”

Jasmine gives him a pitying look. “This is horrible news.”

“Sorry,” Harry says, investigating an odd knot of magic in the wards and finding a trick that makes the back of the building invisible to the untrained eye. “Has Draco told you much about the case?”

“All the particulars,” Jasmine says, watching him wade through the warding spells. “We also had an impromptu defense class this morning and he taught me this sick slug vomiting hex. And some other stuff, but that was the highlight.”

“I’m very familiar with that hex,” Harry says, remembering fondly when Ron had tried to cast it on Draco, who had quite deserved it. Ron had ended up vomiting slugs, but that was besides the point. “You should know how to defend yourself.”

“Oh, I do,” Jasmine says, the effect not dulled even by the fact that her feet don’t touch the floor in the seat she’s sitting in.

Harry had a fair amount of confidence in Draco’s wards, but he’s still impressed by their complexity. No one has snuck into Draco’s shop without the wards knowing about it and if they did manage to break in, Harry can’t imagine how they’d avoid being stunned and hurled through the trap door.

Harry re-briefs Jasmine on the case, taking down her versions of how each supplier hand-off had gone. She refers to Calypso as ‘bonkers as shit,’ Opal as ‘a space case’ and Rob as ‘Smells Like Frogs.” Harry almost asks what frogs smell like and then decides he doesn’t need to know. She corroborates most of the information they already have, but does mention that Rob had seemed out of it during the delivery, though she hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.

“Could that be something?” she asks, watching him scribble in his notebook.

“Maybe,” Harry says. “Won’t know until we pay him a visit.”

“Ooooh,” Jasmine says. “I’ve never been part of an investigation before, this is so fascinating.”

“Draco’s also been excited,” Harry says. “He keeps sneaking off to do research.”

“Swot,” Jasmine says instantly, which is extra funny considering that Jasmine is the one who’d scored a magic summer internship brewing potions. Harry will admit that Draco is also kind of a swot, even though with Hermione as his long-time best friend, his standards for what constitutes as swottery are fairly high.

“I’ll tell him you think so,” Harry says, writing it importantly in his notebook as Draco comes out holding a case of bottles and a funnel.

“Tell me what?”

“That you’re a swot,” Harry says.

Draco makes a sour face, setting the box down next to his cauldron and beginning to spell portions of the brew into the small, blue bottles. “The potion’s ready if anyone is interested.”

Harry and Jasmine slide off their stools to watch as Draco runs a demonstration, combining the test potion with the compromised lycanthropy potion. When the two combine, they turn a sickly, sludgy green. “If there’s nothing wrong with the potion, it’ll turn blue. Any tampering or faulty potion making, and it’ll turn green like this. Even you couldn’t mess it up, Potter.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Draco.”

“You’re an easy target,” he says.

“He’s still testy about the moon thing,” Jasmine says, and Draco gives her a stern look, which sends her into a fit of giggles.

“You said twenty-four other suppliers, correct?” Draco asks, returning the bottles to the box he’d carried them out in, now filled with potion. “I made thirty test jars, just in case. The potion takes a day or two to brew, so let me know sooner rather than later if you need any more. I’ve included usage instructions in the box for each individual supplier, but send any questions they have my way.”

“Great, thanks,” Harry says, taking the box. “Your wards look good by the way, it doesn’t look like anyone’s broken in, or even tried. I’ll let you know as soon as the reports on the potion come back.”

Draco preens. “I told you my wards were good.”

“I know, you’re extremely clever and good at magic,” Harry says, which makes Jasmine laugh.

“Took you long enough,” Draco says crisply, which sends Jasmine, again, into giggles. Harry has the distinct feeling that she knows that he and Draco have kissed, and is concerned that she thinks this is flirting. Harry himself is a little concerned that this is flirting.

“I should probably get these out to suppliers,” Harry says, shifting the box to his hip so he can give a little wave. “I’ll let you know if there are any updates on the case. It was great to meet you, Jasmine. See you later.”

“Great. See you soon. When you have case updates.” Draco says, leaning against the counter as Jasmine gives him a cheerful wave and goodbye. As the door closes behind him, he hears Draco say “Not. A. Word.” to Jasmine, which he decides not to read into.

xx

Hermione has met him in the tiny window of time her absolutely bonkers schedule allows, and is pounding coffee at an alarming rate. She’s listening to him describe his meeting with Jasmine, giving him what has all the power of her undivided attention, though she’s intercepted not one, but two urgent looking owls in the meantime. There’s some idiotic magical creatures legislation they’re trying to push through that’s making her want to pull out her hair, and each time he sees her, she seems at least 4% more stressed.

“I forgot how tiny teenagers are,” Harry says. “I thought, fifteen, that’s a person, right? Wrong! That’s a child! Tiny! Why did they let us try to defeat the greatest dark wizard of all time as literal infants?”

“Well you did—“

“Oh _I know_ ,” Harry says. “But _still_.”

“I mean, I agree, it was child endangerment,” Hermione says, waving her hand about and taking a generous swig from her cup. “But in their favor, they did kind of try to stop us. I remember Remus in particular saying ‘No, certainly not, you are children,’ which, granted, was pretty rich coming from someone whose entire friend group turned into animals at night and then mounted an underground resistance at 18.”

“Fair points made across the board,” Harry says.

“Did you make any progress on the case?” Hermione prods, crossing her legs in neatly pressed trousers. They’re wedged into a corner in the busiest sit-down lunch place in Diagon Alley, one with so many politicians and minor celebrities crammed into its plush velvet booths that no one pays them any mind.

“Maybe,” he says. Hermione doesn’t have all the details, she just knows they’re looking for a shady supplier of questionable potions ingredients. “The assistant is innocent at least, she had some decent descriptions of the suppliers, confirmed a lot of what we already knew.”

Hermione nods, taking a delicate nibble of a piece of candied ginger now that she’s finished her sandwich. She offers him one, which he accepts. She keeps a nearly unlimited supply in her purse. “You sure the assistant’s innocent? You know how we were at fifteen. Mounting secret plots. Breaking the law. Committing treason.”

Harry shakes his head. “No chance. She’s a good one. Die hard Quibbler reader. She asked me what Luna Lovegood smells like and I realized I have no idea.”

Hermione looks pensive, then brightens. “Slightly radishy, but in a pleasant way.”

“That seems right,” Harry agrees.

“So anyway, the assistant. You’re sure its not an act?” Hermione suggests.

Harry shakes his head. “That’s what I said too, but she’s great. Canny, funny.”

“And the other suspects?”

Harry is still sorting out exactly what he thinks. Calypso seems almost comically evil, and deranged enough to pull it off, making her far more likely than Opal, despite her questionable connections. Harry had checked in on her the previous day and found her somewhat like a less needle-sharp Narcissa, pleasant and most engaging when talking about her moth breeding or the intricacies of the weather, or showing him photographs of different cocoons. It seemed like he was barking up the wrong tree.

Rob was interesting, something about the way that Jasmine had described him as “out of it” pinging his auror-senses. Harry had sent an owl asking to meet, claiming to be part of the potion regulations division of the Ministry, and was still waiting to hear back.

“They all seem kind of suspicious to me. Two of them have motives and Jasmine thought one of them seemed weird, which sometimes means guilty.”

“Or Imperiused,” Hermione says.

“Exactly.”

“Maybe they’re all working together,” Hermione suggests. “So its harder to pin the blame on one of them?”

“But why would they all be working together?” Harry asks.

Under her halo of hair, Hermione’s brown eyes are sharp. “You’re right, it’s probably not realistic. Although I am thrilled to hear you’re using the archives. You know how I feel about research.”

“I do know how you feel about research,” Harry says. “I just wish some of it was panning out. We have a lot riding on this potion test and I’m worried that if the results aren’t conclusive we’ll be back at square one.”

“Maybe you could look further into timing, especially if everyone has possible motives,” Hermione suggests. “Maybe see if there’s something about Aileen’s condition that would make Opal do something rash. Or if there’s anything Rob has been involved with recently that could signal a change of allegiance. Maybe check voting records?”

“It sounds like you’re telling me I should probably do more research,” Harry says, grimacing.

She gives him a smile that communicates that she’s sorry but not very sorry. “Seems that way.”

“Alright Hermione, only because you’re my very favorite genius friend, I’ll go do more research,” Harry says.

Hermione beams, laying her hand gently on his. “You know that exact combination of words is my love language.”

“I do know,” Harry says, glancing up when the waiter brings the check and throwing a few coins on the table before Hermione can reach for her purse. “Here, I’ve got lunch, thanks for letting me talk through the case. I’ll see you for dinner later this week?”

“Wait!” she says, trying to gather the coins to hand them back to him. “No! Harry! I hate that you always do this! I make more than you!” By the time she finishes the sentence, he’s already halfway out the door on his way back to the archives.

That evening, when Draco finds him in the archives in the middle of an impressive spread of papers, he’s feeling much less positively about the whole thing.

“Potter, it gives me no pleasure to say this, but you look you were on the business end of a hippogriff stampede.”

Harry looks up, finding Draco looking pressed and neat in the green library light. He’s wearing a dark blue robe, one that means that Harry can see way more of his wrists than he's capable of handling. Harry can’t exactly pinpoint what is so upsetting to him about Draco’s wrists, but he thinks that the longer he looks at them the more upset he’s going to get, so he returns his gaze to firmly to the pile of newspapers. “I thought this was going to go better,” he says glumly, pushing a few towards Draco. “There’s no motive.”

“Of course there is,” Draco says, almost encouragingly, sitting down next to him. Harry is deeply aware of the fact that Draco might be about to try and cheer him up, and the idea makes him feel so wildly out of control he nearly has to put his head down. He knows he’s capable of dramatics, but Draco’s presence does such a good job of reminding him. “We had some ideas about motives, remember? And what about the potion test?”

“We have some ideas about motives,” Harry says forlornly. “But no _motives_.”

Despite everything, Draco looks almost delighted. “Potter, you’re being _maudlin_.”

“I’m not,” Harry protests, perhaps too strongly. “I just can’t figure it out. Why tamper with the potion now? Why do it at all?”

“Coincidence?” Draco asks. He has a look on his face like he doesn’t really believe it’s a coincidence but is giving it a try.

Harry shakes his head. He tries not to let cases get to him like this, but it’s worse when there’s a time limit, worse when it’s something he really cares about. He worries about Bill, he thinks about Lupin, who is gone now. “I just feel like we’re hitting dead ends. What happens if everyone’s potion test comes back okay and we still don’t know why you were targeted? What if everyone’s potions are compromised but not everyone is using the same suppliers?” Draco is looking at him in a strange way again, and it’s making Harry grouchy. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Draco just shakes his head, with the air of someone putting something away. “You need to go home.”

Harry feels a rush of frustration, begins counting down the days in his head. They only have a month, less than now. He’s already wondering what they’ll have to do if they can’t figure it out in time, if there’s enough backlog of the potion to keep everyone safe, if this is all part of some larger, more sinister plot. “Draco, we have to solve it.”

Draco gives him a cool look. “Oh, you think you’re going to first name me into agreeing with you? I don’t think so. You can be a hero tomorrow, Harry. You look an absolute train wreck. Go to bed, sleep it off, we’ll start again tomorrow.”

Harry almost argues, but something in Draco’s face, some tell of gentleness, suggests that he’s being done a kindness, and so he gives in.

xx

A few more letters appear on his doorstep than he usually expects, but he doesn’t put it all together until he sees the Daily Prophet. It’s not the front cover, but it is on the front page, in a square that says “PALFOY - THE FORBIDDEN FLAME REKINDLED? More on page six,” and a picture of him and Draco walking down the steps of the library together the previous evening.

Harry’s first thought is, inexplicably, that Palfoy surely can’t be the best combination of their names, and then he flips to page six to read the article. They’re both smiling, but as the picture moves, Harry spots that horrible look on his face, the one that’s so open and soft he feels like he can see all the way inside of it. He doesn’t remember choosing that expression but, as he turns to look at Draco, there it goes flickering across his face.

He hadn’t saved the pictures from the last time, the ones where it had looked, if possible, even worse. He wishes he had, but knows that whatever he found doing a side by side comparison would make him need to shut himself permanently in his bedroom until he died.

The first letter he opens is from Hermione, it reads: HARRY! Your case— Draco is on it, isn’t he? Let me know if there is Anything I can do to help! Hugs, Hermione

The second one is from Ron, it reads: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. just kidding. but haha. Hermione is telling me this is mean to send but look at your FACE. Anyway I’m mostly just writing to you at the breakfast table because Hermione is and I wanted to be included. Snogs Galore, Ronald

The third, which he’s put off until last, is from Draco, it reads: _Potter, I’m coming over at 8:30 AM. We need to discuss. Please make me tea, strong, no sugar, no milk. Sincerely, Draco._

The clock reads 8:27, and Harry needs to be at work by 9, all things that pale in comparison with the fact that he’s only wearing pants and Draco is going to be in his kitchen in three minutes. He doesn’t ponder why Draco has access to his house via Floo (he knows quite well why) and decides rather quickly that it’s a better idea to start the kettle and put toast in the toaster than it is to get dressed. It’s only after Draco comes through his Floo, dressed in a terribly comfortable looking shirt and trousers than Harry regrets every choice he’s ever made, up to and including this one. Weakly, he gestures towards a steaming cup of tea, as Draco looks at him like he’s never seen something so scandalizing in his life, which isn’t true, at least because Draco has seen Harry naked, on two separate occasions.

“Oh for Salazar’s sake, Potter,” Draco says, looking unmoored in the dining room. “This is a disaster already and you’ve made it worse.”

“I chose toast!” Harry protests, gesturing weakly to the magical toaster, which, at his summons, cheerfully produces two pieces of perfect toast with a jingle.

Draco takes a deep breath, steeples his fingers and begins a comprehensive, full body freak out. “Potter. They’re going to see this picture and know that I know and that we’re looking for them.” Harry opens his mouth to contribute something, but Draco barrels on.

“And once they know, they’re going to wonder how it is that I know and then they’re going to look into it and know that I, me, Draco Lucius Malfoy, am a werewolf and then, then, they will wreak both havoc and disaster upon me and my mother who, when her friends find out I’m a werewolf, will make clear to her that this is just one of many unfortunate slights upon the Malfoy family name, a name which can only truly handle so many more slights, in a way that is more subtly cruel than if they’d just flat out just said something mean.” His manner of speaking reminds Harry of a box of marbles being opened at the top of a flight of stairs. “Which compounds my previous point in regards to the untold horrors that will be visited upon me and London’s werewolf population at large, the likes of which I scarcely care to imagine and haven’t a clue how to prepare for.” He stops, bright pink, and takes a steadying breath. “Not to mention. The paper itself.”

“Are you quite finished?” Harry says, once he seems to have talked himself into exhaustion.

“No. Put a shirt on,” Draco says, and sits in the dining room chair as if he’s afraid it will bite him. “I am freaking out. Why aren’t you freaking out?”

“I think you’re having a panic attack,” Harry says, retrieving the cup of tea from the counter and placing in front of Draco, who is on the special line between vibrating and utter stillness. “I wouldn’t say I’m not freaking out,” he says as gently as he can, when Draco just keeps staring at him. So much about this situation is reminding him of all the ways that he, Ron and Hermione learned how to talk each other down after the war. “I think maybe you’ve made some logical leaps that our tamperer won’t have made. No one thinks we’re doing Auror business.” Harry grimaces. “They think we’re dating.”

Draco looks appropriately stricken. “What should we do?”

“I was thinking ask Luna to run a full page article that says ‘Potter and Malfoy: Not Fucking!’” Harry tries, which makes Draco bury his face briefly into his hands. “Sorry.”

“I have lost months, maybe years off my life this morning alone,” Draco says morosely, taking a gulp of tea. “Should we be pretending to date? Will that throw them off the trail? I hate this, this is not my job. Your job is bad, Potter, and I loathe it.”

“This is in no way a normal part of my job,” Harry counters. “And it’s not the disaster you think it is. No one knows you’re a werewolf. Everything is fine.”

Draco glares at him for ten seconds, then delicately starts in on a piece of toast. “Well, aren’t you going to eat something?”

Harry laughs despite himself, grabbing a piece of toast and leaving to go put on his Auror robes. When he returns, Draco is still sitting quietly at his kitchen table nursing his cup of tea.

Harry realizes with horror that as long as Draco is looking peaky and odd at his dining table, Harry should probably be trying to make polite conversation with him. Harry ends up asking him what potions he has brewing and they get embroiled in a debate about whether or not Harry would be bad at potions if Snape hadn’t been their potions professor. Harry cites decent grades in his other classes and his stellar performance under Slughorn’s tutelage, which Draco doesn’t need to know can be traced directly to the Half-Blood Prince’s Textbook. Draco dismisses this entirely on the merits that Slughorn showed Harry undue favoritism, which Harry thinks is a little rich considering how much Snape favored Draco. Draco is arguing that Harry’s negligible talents (risk taking, sheer power, and bullheadedness) are entirely unsuited to potions which requires intuition, rule following, and attention to detail, when Harry realizes that he’s on his way to being late for work and hustles Draco back through the Floo, still constructing his final argument.

By the time he strides into his office, he’s decided to try and have a sense of humor about the whole Daily Prophet thing, something he’s had quite a bit of practice with considering that the Prophet has been running annoying, mostly-false stories about him for his entire living memory.

Dara, when she strolls in with a large cup of coffee, is also having a sense of humor about the article, and pauses what she’s doing to laugh at him as he gets settled in at his desk.

“Thank you Dara, if I were unsure how you felt, which I wasn’t, I think I’m filled in,” he says, sifting through his case files.

“Can it be? Is my horrible and disorderly partner about to do the paperwork that has gone so neglected since he got a new boyfriend?” she asks, perching on the edge of his desk and immediately knocking over his quill holder. She begins the task of setting it back to rights, sending a pile of papers onto the floor in the process.

“First thing, I don’t have a boyfriend, Second, I never do paperwork unless I can help it, and Thirdly, neither do you,” Harry says, which makes Dara laugh more.

“Gordon and Potter: freaks in the streets, but not in the sheets. Sheets as in paper. Paperwork.” She slides off his desk, returning to hers and placing both of her boots on its scuffed surface.

“That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to me, thank you so much,” Harry says, remembering for context that Dara has saved his life multiple times and is probably smarter and more talented than most of the department. “I’m worried this case is hitting a dead end,” he says. “Rob hasn’t gotten back to me for questions, Hermione wants me to do more research for motives, but none of my research is turning anything up and we don’t have that much longer before the next full moon.”

Dara looks thoughtful. “All that time you spent with your damoiseau still hasn’t given you any strong leads?”

“My what?”

Dara waves her hand dismissively. “Boy Damsel. You’re still sure it’s foul play?”

Harry nods. Draco thinks it’s foul play and Harry trusts him.

Dara doesn’t argue, though Harry knows she’s more dubious of the whole enterprise. “Sounds like we need to hunt down Rob and figure out what his deal is. Maybe it’ll turn up something useful while we wait for the rest of our potions results. Don’t know if it’s worse or better news that everyone else’s batches seem okay so far.”

“I don’t know either,” Harry agrees. “And there’s still a chance Rob’s been Imperiused, and who knows if that makes things more or less complicated.”

“Those thorny unforgivables. At least you can usually tell,” Dara says, scrubbing her hands over her face. “Okay, let’s pay Rob a surprise visit tomorrow. Maybe we can startle him into giving something up, whatever that is.”

“Awesome,” Harry says, remembering that part of the reason that he and Dara are such a good team is because she always, no matter what, has a plan and a can-do attitude. “What’s on the docket today?”

Dara grins like ‘I thought you would never ask’ and grabs a poster from her desk. “Perhaps you have forgotten in the wild, lustful honeymoon phase of a new love…” The paper unrolls, unveiling a heavily annotated map of wizard and Muggle London. “But we have a dragon smuggling ring to rustle and Khoury just got us some new intel.”

xx

They don’t pay Rob a surprise visit the next day. They do, however, bust an international dragon smuggling ring in one whirlwind overnight stakeout involving a truck full of gouda, Charlie Weasley riding bareback on a Tangerine Spine-Nosed, and two rather clever applications of Polyjuice potion. By the time it’s over, Harry is slightly singed, a little battered, and moderately tipsy after heading to the pub for victory shots with Dara, Ron, Jamie Khoury, and the rest of the Auror detail. Dara does not profess her love for Princess, though she does treat them to a stirring rendition of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Harry makes it home as the sun is coming up, and notices the letter on his doormat as he pushes open the door, addressed to him in Draco’s tidy handwriting. He opens it, leaning against the doorway in the cool summer morning.

_Harry, ___

____

_Did you receive my letter at the Auror offices? I may have sent it too late for it to reach you tonight. Has any progress been made on the case?_

__

_Sincerely,_

__

_Draco_

__

It’s written in a tight, nervous scrawl, and Harry pictures Draco pacing in his shop, fussing distractedly with a potion while he waits. Harry and the rest of the Aurors have the day off so they can catch up on sleep after the sting, but he knows from experience that going to bed now will just mean staring at his ceiling for another few hours. He dithers on the doorstep before grabbing his broom from the entryway and heading back out into the chill, cloudy morning, a breeze whipping his hair as he pushes off. Even as he flies towards Draco's flat, he's vaguely aware that he has no real reason to go there.

__

He touches down just as the streets are starting to fill with witches and wizards on their way to work. His hair is swept in all directions and his body is finally starting to ache after the sting, the scratches and burns on his skin growing irritated. He rings Draco’s apartment twice before the charm projects Draco’s clipped voice out into the street. “Who is calling at this hour?”

__

“Me. Harry.”

__

There’s a long pause. “Potter?”

__

“Yeah.”

__

The door unlocks for him, and Harry, feeling foolish now that he’s arrived, takes the stairs up to Draco’s flat. Draco looks entirely too put together for so early in the morning, waiting in his doorway as Harry comes to the landing. Harry feels acutely that he looks like he just stopped an international dragon smuggling ring and then spent the entire rest of the night taking victory shots at the pub and Draco is his usual immaculate self. Draco is looking at him in a way that he doesn’t know how to parse, and Harry looks down at his feet so he doesn’t have to meet Draco’s gaze.

__

“You’re hurt,” Draco says finally, reaching out to rest his fingers resting lightly on Harry’s chin, tilting his face up so he can examine the cut. It hadn’t been deep, but it had bled all over his uniform when it had happened. It was comparatively much better than last year, when he was laid up for a week while his body remembered how to work with all of his blood on the inside. There hadn’t even been broken bones this time, only a variety of scrapes and bruises and the stiffness of a fading fight.

__

“I’ve had worse,” Harry says, not meeting Draco’s eyes. Harry wishes Draco would take his hand off Harry’s face but doesn’t know how to ask. It’s only the tips of Draco’s first two fingers tilting his jawline up, a light, clinical touch, and Harry is aware of the fact that it registers to him as far too much.

__

Draco is looking at him like he’s trying to read his mind. When he finally speaks, it’s as if everything that’s happening is normal.

__

“Would you like to come in?”

__

“Please,” Harry says, and exhales as Draco finally lets him go, leading him back into the austere little apartment to put the kettle on for tea.

__

“What on Earth did you do last night?” Draco asks, fetching two floral printed cups from the cupboards. “You smell like smoke and you look a fright.”

__

“Thanks,” Harry says, lingering in the middle of the kitchen. “We busted that dragon smuggling ring, rescued a bunch of Feathered Northerns.”

__

“Sit down, you’re hovering,” Draco says, waving him towards a trim little armchair. Draco’s apartment is as staid and tidy as the rest of him, but the longer Harry looks, the more strange treasures he sees lying on shelves and tucked next to books and other reasonable things. Harry spots, inexplicably, what appears to be a framed, crayon drawing of a princess and a knight, and bites back a smile when he recognizes Teddy’s handiwork. “All the dragons accounted for?”

__

“Yes,” Harry says, collapsing into the chair. He watches Draco move around the kitchen, turning the faucet on and off, pouring the tea, moving plates around. Draco drops two neat sugar cubes into Harry’s cup, bringing it over to him.

__

“You know how I take my tea,” Harry says.

__

Draco goes to get his own tea. “I had a feeling. I don’t know why I know.” Draco kneels down in front of him, sliding his wand out of his sleeve. He makes every move like someone forming an origami crane, like it must be done precisely and perfectly the first time. “I’m going to heal your cuts, please don’t put up a fuss about it.”

__

Harry nods, sets his tea on the floor, and sits patiently like he does for the Healers. He feels overexposed even though he invited himself into this position, a situation that feels rapidly like its about to roll off the tracks. Draco is so close to him, examining the gouge on his face with a serious expression. Harry notices the shape of Draco’s nose, how it’s actually kind of large, as noses go, but how it makes sense on his face, with how sharp his jaw is and how high his cheekbones are. It’s all Harry can do to breathe.

__

Draco brings his wand to Harry’s face and murmurs something under his breath that makes the cut knit, the skin stretching and tightening over the bloodied area. Harry remembers waking up next to him when he’d accidentally stayed over, how Draco had looked exhausted even while he slept, how in the morning he’d slunk out with barely a word. For all that Harry does to pretend that he hadn’t cared at all when they’d kissed those nights in the bathroom stall, it had been nice, nice enough that when everyone else found out he’d shoved it away and pretended it hadn’t been anything. He’s still terrified by how much wanting to punch Draco and wanting to kiss Draco feel the same in his stomach, how the feeling never went away.

__

Draco runs his thumb over the healed cut and then takes Harry’s hands, turning them over and finding the series of long scratches left by a distressed baby dragon, long and angry down his wrist and all the way up his arm. He does another spell, the skin healing under his care.

__

Harry tries to think if he’s ever seen Draco be this gentle. He keeps noticing it, the gentleness, blooming behind the sharp way he speaks and the deliberate way he moves. It’s not like how he used to be, but it suits him, seems natural to the way he is now.

__

“You’re good at this,” Harry manages, as Draco mends the cuts on his fingers, the skin smoothing.

__

Draco nods. “Practice.”

__

“When?” Harry asks.

__

Draco sighs. “There were a lot of wounds to heal in the manor during the war.”

__

“Yours?” Harry asks, searching Draco’s pale skin for scars he might have overlooked. He finds none on the skin he can see.

__

“Among others,” Draco says, sitting back on his heels. “Are there any I’m missing? If you take your shirt off are your organs just going to fall out?”

__

“I hope not,” Harry says, then, “That’s all. It was almost nothing.”

__

Draco looks at him doubtfully, but takes his tea cup back and sits at the armchair across from him. In its cage, a small brown owl makes happy little morning noises, but otherwise the apartment has the same calm, semi-quiet that Harry’s does in the morning.

__

“Thank you,” Harry says, running his hand over the smooth, new skin on his face.

__

“You’re welcome.” Draco takes a sip of his tea, sitting terribly straight and watching him. “Potter. Why are you here?”

__

Harry has been waiting for this question, but by the time it arrives it surprises him. “I don’t know.”

__

Draco nods, still looking at him. “Alright.” The silence stretches between them and Harry has the feeling that there are other things that Draco wants to say but won’t. “I should be at the shop soon, I have some potions to brew today.”

__

“I can— I’ll leave,” Harry offers, overwhelmed and a little sorry, though he doesn’t know for what. He doesn’t think he’s known a damn thing since he got here. “Sorry.”

__

“You can stay, if you want,” Draco says, and Harry can’t read his tone. He thinks it sounds like maybe Draco is sorry for something too. “But don’t you have Auror things to be doing?”

__

“We get the day off after overnight stings,” Harry explains. “But I, I obviously shouldn’t stay.” Draco’s house is clean and cozy and he could stay here comfortably forever, but that he shouldn’t, probably. He has no good reason to and he knows it would be weird, logically, to be at Draco’s house when he isn’t in it. He knows this, and yet he wants to sit in the armchair and drink Draco’s tea and wait for him to come home. More than anything, it’s the unabashed intimacy of this idea that makes him absolutely positive he needs to leave.

__

Draco nods, gathers himself and returns to the kitchen. He sets a dishwashing spell on a few plates and returns to his bedroom for a bag, taking a few things out of it to leave on the table and then throwing it over his shoulder. “Okay.” Draco says, lingering at the door. Harry realizes belatedly that he’s on his way out, and jumps up to follow him, trailing him down the stairs, broom in hand.

__

They stop at the doorstep, the morning light catching in Draco’s pale hair.

__

“You better actually sleep,” Draco says, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

__

“You sound like Hermione,” Harry says, straddling his broom. “We’re hoping to question Rob tomorrow. Hopefully that’ll help us piece everything together.”

__

Draco nods. “Any results back yet on the test?”

__

“Everyone who’s gotten back to us said their supply is okay. Told everyone it was urgent, so naturally we’re still waiting for about half.”

__

“Naturally. Keep me apprised if you learn anything new.”

__

“Of course,” Harry says. “See you later.” He kicks off and rises up into the sunshine. When he glances back down at Draco, he’s still watching him from the porch, face tilted up to the sky.

__

xx

__

Dara and Harry meet Rob Spreckleroy in what can only be described as a swamp. Dara still has the healing remains of an impressive burn curling down her neck, but she looks remarkably well rested as they take the swaying bridge across a clearwater stream to Rob’s lopsided little cottage.

__

“You just wait until I retire,” Dara’s saying, her boots squelching in the mud. “I’m going to get my own swamp and you’ll only hear from me on Halloween and Christmas.”

__

“Okay, Shrek,” Harry says, and Dara laughs.

__

“I actually know that one,” she says, stepping through a curtain of weeping willows. “Jess loves ogres.”

__

“Why does your toddler child love ogres?” Harry asks. “How did that happen?”

__

“I told her that only ogres didn’t like baths and learned my lesson very quickly. Almost immediately, in fact,” Dara says. She gives Rob’s door three sound raps that echo into the trees. The only noise from inside or outside the house is the steady croak of more toads and frogs than Harry knows what to do with. Harry actually doesn’t know the difference between toads and frogs, and he’s concerned that that’s going to become an issue.

__

“Hello! Ministry business, please open up!” Dara calls, giving the door another authoritative series of knocks.

__

There’s another long, froggy pause before Harry hears a splashing from around the side of the house and Rob appears with wellies and a net, looking a bit surly. Just like the picture Draco showed him, Rob has a long brown braid, doughy pale skin, and looks kind of like if a morel mushroom were a person. “If you’re here because of Connie, you can tell her that as long as it’s on my side of the property line, it’s my swamp and what I do in it is my business.”

__

“Oh no, we’re not here about that,” Harry starts. “Although, just coincidentally, as long as we’re on the subject, what exactly are you doing in your swamp?”

__

Rob crosses his arms defensively over his chest. “Raising amphibians.”

__

“Noted,” Harry says, just as a bright green frog and/or toad comes ribbiting across the path. He absolutely should have checked the particulars of this before they came. “No problem with that. Totally fine. May we come in and ask you a few questions? We’re part of the potion regulation division and know that you supply ingredients to a few different potioneers, is that right?”

__

“That’s right,” Rob says. “You can come in, but I have some very important tadpoles I need to babysit later today, so I can’t be long.” Rob jimmies open the door to his cottage, holding it to reveal a cozy interior that feels like the slightly damper version of Hagrid’s hut. Rob gestures to a set of bright green wooden chairs, settling into one of his own.

__

“Do you keep any kind of schedule or list of clients?” Dara asks, crossing one booted foot over the other.

__

Rob nods, digging a scroll out from a tall, orange built-in and unrolling it on the table. “Here’s the list.” Harry doesn’t cringe about how long it is, but it’s a near thing.

__

“Great, we just have some questions about the particulars of your deliveries, it’s a new procedure,” Dara says, procuring her notebook. Harry pulls out his own, preparing for the long haul.

__

Rob nods amicably enough. Harry watches him carefully for any tells of nervousness and finds none. Harry feels that perhaps it would have been more polite to offer them tea, but then hears a tinny ribbit from inside the kettle and thinks that perhaps its for the best that they haven’t been. Harry takes the list, and begins at the top. “Your last delivery to Puddlenik Alquick, can you recount the details? When you arrived, what you delivered?”

__

Rob nods, stewing on the question for a moment. “Well, that was about a week ago. I usually bring Puddle a few fresh three banded bulltoads. She uses ‘em for her cooking.”

__

Harry does a truly admirable job of not wrinkling his nose. “And that delivery, can you tell us any specific details about it? If anything special happened with the toads, what the weather was like?”

__

Rob nods eagerly, like these are perfectly normal questions. Sometimes Harry can’t quite believe the extent to which the wizarding world runs on bullshit bureaucracy and whimsy. “Well, see, Puddlenik is a fiend with preserves and such, and the day I was visiting it was cucumber compote season, which was all well and good because I do love a cucumber compote.” Rob frowns. “But I get there and the toads smell the cucumber and they, well, they escape the basket, because, as I said, they’re fresh. So they escape the basket and you know how toads are with cucumbers.”

__

Harry nods, scribbling attentively on his pad ‘you know how frogs are with cucumbers,’ then crosses ‘frogs’ out and writes ‘toads.’ “Of course,” he says, knowing deep in his heart that he’s going to know far more about any type of amphibian that he’ll ever need to know by the end of this. “Typical toads.”

__

“Exactly,” Rob says, looking like he likes both of them quite a bit more already, and launches into the rest of the tale, which has at least three twists and a surprise ending.

__

The questioning goes on like this for another two hours, at which point Rob realizes that he has to check his tadpoles, and then they go trouping through the swap after him with continued questions and borrowed wellies. Harry’s have little bumblebees on them and Dara’s are bright pink, and they’re both quite pleased with the situation. Rob explains the taxonomic differences between the Eastern Belching Blue Toad and the Western Belching Blue Toad, goes quite deep into the personal secrets of his esteemed client Mimsy Porpington, and describes his upcoming trip to the Amazon with great relish two separate times. By the time they make it all the way to the bottom of the list, Harry has twenty pages of mostly nonsense notes and is becoming vaguely concerned that where his brain used to be there is only a small toad hopping jovially from side to side.

__

“Imperiused,” Dara says, when they finally Apparate back to the office. Harry is aware that they smell of damp and mud and wants nothing more than a hot shower, but they still have about an hour or two before it’s really fair for them to head home.

__

“No doubt,” Harry says, plonking himself into his desk and shuffling through his notes to the part where they asked, rather at length, about Draco Malfoy. “No memory of that delivery at all.”

__

“Or the ones right before and after it, really.” Dara says. “Someone did a serious Obliviate on him.”

__

Dara’s hair has frizzed out quite spectacularly post-swamp, and Harry’s curls have done the same. He’s aware that his hair volume is spectacular on a normal day, and he’s impressed the extent to which it’s overachieved. “Who the fuck could it be? Anyone, right?”

__

Dara nods, throwing herself into her desk chair and consulting her crystal ball, which is Harry’s favorite thing, at least in part because it makes her look absolutely batty.

__

“Dara, blink once if you see toads, twice if you see frogs.”

__

“For someone whose whole hero thing was based on a prophecy you’re mighty confident in yourself, bucko,” Dara says, tilting her head back while keeping her gaze fixed on the ball, her fingers resting on the glass.

__

“Bet I can solve it before you,” Harry says, spinning around in his office chair, rewinding through the details of the day. There has to be someone else implicated, someone else to question from the stew of people and places that Rob had run them through. Harry consults his notes, considering witches, wizards, and otherwise, returning finally to the first line he wrote: you know how toads are with cucumbers. He rolls back further, when they knocked on the door and and Rob appeared in his wellies and asked if they were there because of Connie.

__

“Dara.”

__

She whirls. “You’ve got it?”

__

“Connie, the nosy neighbor. Rob does all his deliveries remotely, so if someone met him at the house to Imperius him, there’s a decent chance that she might have seen it.”

__

Dara rests a hand on her chest, pretending to be swept away. “I’m so impressed with you right now that I can’t even be mad that you got it first.”

__

“Your turn to put a sickle in the Pizza Party Jar,” Harry says, picking up the jar full of coins and holding it up for Dara, cheering when she digs a sickle out of her pocket and wings it straight in with a clatter.

__

“Beautiful form,” Harry says, returning the jar to his desk. “Last person to finish their dragon paperwork has to put a Galleon in the jar, and we head over to see Connie tomorrow morning?”

__

“Absolutely inspired, Harry,” Dara says, procuring her flamingo feather quill and pulling a horrible stack of paper from inside her desk. “Merlin, I love the Pizza Party Jar. The jewel of all Gryffindor-Hufflepuff collaborations.”

__

“Helga and Godric themselves send their accolades,” Harry says, grabbing his quill and starting in on the mountain of paperwork before them.

__

xx

__

Harry has showered, made his best effort at a balanced meal, and flipped through both Quidditch Weekly and The Quibbler. He’s even tried to do the Quibbler’s notoriously difficult crossword puzzle, making it a fairly impressive quarter of the way in. It’s so deliberately obtuse that Hermione refuses point blank to do it, mainly because Ron is markedly better at it than she is, through sheer ability to come up with odd and unexpected answers. Luna’s philosophy on the crossword is that it should cater to all intelligences, meaning that it’s designed to be completed over the course of a week as a collaborative project. It’s really peak Luna, and it makes his head hurt.

__

Once Harry exhausts his normal avenues for entertainment, he sits down to write Draco an update on the case. What he comes up with, after a sufficient amount of agonizing, is:

__

_Draco,_  
_We questioned Rob today, very successfully, by which I mean that I wore wellies with bees on them. Rob has definitely been Imperiused, though we don’t know who’s behind it. We’re going to question his nosy neighbor Connie in the hopes that she’ll have seen something. If you’d like to come over and discuss the particulars of the case you’re welcome to, just call via Floo._

__

_Sincerely,_

__

_Harry_

__

He sends Beaky (full name Buckbeak 2), his bonkers-looking brown screech owl, out with the letter, and then immediately wonders why he chose to write the letter from the point of view of a complete pillock. Considering that it’s too late to try again, he returns to answering the rest of his post, which includes a four page missive from Luna and a few vacation photos from Neville that prominently feature mushrooms.

__

He’s just finishing up writing Neville the most interesting bits of office gossip when Draco comes through the Floo and into Harry’s living room, his hair sticking every which way from his trip.

__

“Not my favorite way to travel,” Draco says, returning his hair to its usual immaculate state with two economical hand movements.

__

“Mine either. Thanks for coming,” Harry says, like they’re at a fucking business meeting. He’s curious if his brain is ever going to work again or if he’s just going to be like this forever.

__

“Of course,” Draco says, lingering next to the fireplace. Harry realizes that Draco isn’t sure where he should sit, and is going to hover there until Harry properly invites him in. It’s somewhat of a relief, really, that Draco is just as much of an idiot as he is. This has been a surprise, but one of those that feels like he should have known it much sooner, really.

__

“You can sit wherever,” Harry says, and stifles a laugh when Draco looks relieved and picks Harry’s favorite aggressively-patterned red armchair. “I’ll get us a drink?”

__

“Oh,” Draco says. “Is it the news that bad?”

__

“Oh no, not that. I’m just. You know. Hosting.”

__

Draco, to Harry’s relief, laughs. “Oh, yes, of course, now that you say it I am noticing the hospitality.”

__

Harry surveys his booze cabinet, trying to figure out which alcohol choice says ‘casual, chill, normal lads night.’ This is complicated because on their normal lads night, he, Ron, and sometimes Neville do their best to make the most alarming cocktails known to man or beast, and he’s not sure he’s ready to try and walk Draco through that process. He ends up panic-choosing a wine he nicked from an office party, uncorking it with a bit of wandless magic and pouring them two glasses.

__

“What’s the vintage?” Draco asks, and then, seeing Harry’s face, laughs and says. “You’re too easy.”

__

“Next time you do that I’m just picking a year and pouring it into your lap,” Harry grumbles, handing him the glass and falling into the adjacent armchair, one in a very different but equally loud print.

__

Draco tilts his nose into the glass. “Mmm. The bouquet, so complex. I’m detecting… hmm. It must be grape.”

__

“Stuff it,” Harry says, taking a gulp of the wine. Draco is being silly, his brain registers. Draco is in his living room being silly. He feels, vaguely, like his heart is going to hop into his throat. All of this, already, seems like more than than should be allowed somehow.

__

“So do you have any idea who Imperiused poor Rob?” Draco asks.

__

“No real leads yet,” Harry says. “I’m crossing my fingers that his nosy neighbor is the old fashioned kind.”

__

“Feels quite serious, doesn’t it,” Draco says, taking a generous gulp of wine. “You don’t Imperius someone unless you really mean it. Makes me concerned it’s Death Eaters.” He worries his thumb over the inside of his wrist on the arm that still bears the Dark Mark. Harry doesn’t know if he’s aware he’s doing it. “Or their ilk.”

__

“You probably wouldn’t hear anything if it was them, would you?” Harry says. “You don’t still have any sources we could try?”

__

He’s a little worried Draco is going to take offense at him asking, but the question doesn’t seem to bother him. “Probably not. How strange. The mechanisms of evil move on without me.” Then, he shrugs languidly. “They don’t even send me the Death Eater Digest any longer.”

__

“Isn’t that just the Daily Prophet?” Harry asks, and Draco smirks.

__

“Point.”

__

“Might not be Death Eaters,” Harry says. “Seems kinda boring for it to be them again. Like you know, it’s Voldy for seven years in a row, couldn’t someone else take over general evildoing for a little while?”

__

“Looking forward to Britain’s New Most Promising Dark Lord,” Draco says. “They’ll put it next to the ‘Most Charming Smile Award’ in Witch Weekly. Perhaps it will get a whole spread.”

__

“Would you believe I’ve never won most charming smile? I got a ‘surliest hero’ honorable mention the year after the war, which is much worse than just not being mentioned at all. Dara hung it in the break room, I think it’s still there.”

__

Draco nearly chokes on his wine. “That’s because you walk around looking like this all the time.” He furrows his brow, frowning with a vengeance.

__

“I do not look like that,” Harry says, then, when Draco just laughs, repeats his objection even louder.

__

“I can personally corroborate that you’ve looked like that since exactly eleven and probably earlier. Your ability to look grumpy is unmatched.”

__

“Oh? Well at least I don’t look like this.” Harry curls his lip and looks over at Draco with the best expression of smug disdain he can muster.

__

“Oh absolutely not,” Draco says. “Not even minutely. Generations of Malfoys are turning at their graves at your poor impression of my general air of contempt.”

__

“Is it because I don’t have your inborn pointiness?”

__

Draco smirks. “It’s your lack of verve.”

__

Harry laughs, then takes another look at Draco’s face, and laughs even harder. It is strange to have Draco in his house, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with the fact that it keeps happening. It occurs to Harry that maybe he should apologize for showing up at Draco’s flat the previous morning slightly tipsy and definitely bleeding. “I’m sorry about, you know, yesterday.” Draco’s smile shrinks a little, and Harry wonders which part was the part he did wrong. “I got your letter right as I got home from the pub and I just invited myself over.”

__

Draco is looking at him curiously again, and Harry kicks himself for bringing the curious look back, when they’d been having such a nice time. “I didn’t mind.”

__

“Oh, then.” Harry comes up blank. “Then I’m not sorry at all.”

__

Draco seems to decide Harry is doing something amusing, which is better than before. “It’s alright, you oddball. You can consider it payback for the time I showed up at your house at an unreasonable hour.”

__

“I’m not an oddball.”

__

“Oh yes you are,” Draco says loftily. “A veritable oddball.”

__

Harry takes a gulp of wine, looking over at Draco, who is watching him with a soft expression and raised eyebrows. It’s strange to see him like this, in the same way he finds it strange, sometimes, when he looks over and sees Ron with his stupid ponytail drinking his morning mug of coffee with a smile on his face or Hermione tucked in a corner, deeply engrossed in some book she’s reading. It’s the fact that he’s known them since they were such different people, that for so long they were in danger and now they’re smiling together after the war. He almost can’t believe it’s possible. He gets caught like that all the time, watching all of them, marveling at it.

__

“What are you thinking?” Draco asks.

__

Harry tilts his head back, thinking about the way Draco moves, how everything he does is careful. “You’re so different, now.”

__

“I know,” Draco says. He looks a little sad. “I was wondering if we would talk about it.”

__

“That’s not really our forte, is it?” Harry asks, then feels like he’s been a little too honest. “We don’t have to.”

__

Draco shrugs, eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance. “But we probably should.”

__

Harry curls his legs under him, leaning against the arm of the chair. He wants to rush ahead and tell him that it’s all okay, that he’s already apologized and been forgiven and that Harry can see all the ways he’s different now. It’s the kind of thing he would have done before, but he’s gotten much better at listening.

__

“I am really sorry, about everything. I know I did so many unspeakable things,” Draco begins, both hands cupping his glass. “I didn’t see any way out. You can’t possibly imagine how much I hated myself by the end.” He glances over at Harry. “Well, perhaps you can.”

__

Harry nods. He remembers how many times he looked into Draco’s eyes and saw only fear, all the way down. There’s another bit of quiet that Harry lets extend into the living room, waits for Draco to talk it all through.

__

“I don’t really think I should be forgiven for all I did. I don’t know why I’m not in Azkaban. Sometimes I think I should be. My father just threw money at the problem and it went away. And you testified for me, I still don’t understand why you did that. After the war I tried so hard to prove myself and I don’t know if it really mattered.” There’s something terribly young in Draco’s face again, some bleak, childish terror. “So much of it wasn’t my fault, but I know that doesn’t matter. I’m trying to be a good person, I’ve been trying for years now. I don’t know if it’s enough.”

__

Harry realizes too late that he doesn’t know what to say. He remembers the muddy aftermath of the war, when Draco was going around looking so sorry, throwing money at anything that needed it, going to ministry charity balls and looking taciturn, drawn. Harry had expected it to feel good, seeing Draco fall from grace, but it hadn’t.

__

“I was such a coward,” Draco continues. “I should have done something, but I didn’t. I’m sorry that I didn’t do anything.”

__

If Harry doesn’t say something, words are going to keep falling out of Draco’s mouth, maybe forever. He almost opens his mouth to tell Draco that he forgives him, but he thinks Draco already knows. Harry looks at him, this person he’s only starting to know, who he’s known his whole life and says the only thing he really wanted to hear after the war was over. “I understand.”

__

Draco watches him with his sharp gray eyes. “I know,” he says, and then, “Thank you.”

__

“I’m glad we’re on the same side now,” Harry says, which is such a small way to say it, but a right one.

__

Draco laughs, a disbelieving, tiny thing. “Wonders never cease.”

__

“And I’m glad you’re not such a fucking tosser anymore.” Harry chances.

__

“Really? You don’t still think I’m a tosser?” Draco asks. “But I try so hard.”

__

“I think you’ve lost your edge,” Harry says. “I haven’t wanted to punch you in ages. It used to be a weekly problem. Do you remember how often I had to physically hold Ron back?”

__

Draco cringes, his cheeks going a rather satisfying pink. “In my defense, you were both so easy to bait. How was I to resist?” He takes a gulp of wine. “That’s an apology. I know it didn’t sound or look like one, nor did I say the word sorry, but regardless.”

__

Harry starts laughing, and for a good minute, doesn’t stop. “That’s the worst apology I’ve ever heard in my life, and that’s including every apology Ron or Hermione have ever given.”

__

“Merlin, the company,” Draco says. “Oh, do you know who is lousy at apologies? My beloved friend Blaise. He ruined some of my favorite brogues on one of his slutty excursions and I ended up apologizing to him. It all happened so fast.”

__

“There have got to be parts of this story I’m not hearing,” Harry says, and Draco makes a face and launches into a rather complicated account of the slutty excursion in question, which seemed to involve firewhisky, more than five former-Slytherins, and drag for fun and profit. This reminds Harry of the time that Luna did his makeup for Ron and Hermione’s wedding which, through overzealous application of setting charms, had resulted in Harry rocking a rather aggressive pink lip for an entire month. Draco agrees that while not ideal, it was a bold and chic move. They get into a heated debate about which Hogwarts dessert is the best and then rank Harry’s snitch catches from Least to Most Stupid, followed by Draco performing a dramatic re-enactment of the time that Lockheart removed all of the bones in Harry’s arm, which Harry, despite his best efforts, finds hysterical.

__

They finish the bottle of wine and Harry realizes as he sends Draco back through the Floo, that once the case is over, they aren’t going to have any excuse to do this anymore. He thinks, with a fair bit of surprise, that he might even be a little bit sad about it.

__

xx

__

Connie, upon spotting Dara and Harry at her door, whisks them immediately into her house, which is dark and very tartan-heavy. The air is thick with the smell of potpourri, all the window shades drawn in favor of pink-tinted light from two rather hideous lamps. As someone whose taste in furniture has been called ‘eclectic’ in a clearly derogatory way, Harry feels comfortable describing the design scheme as heinous. 

“Come in quickly! You never know who could have an eye out!” She says, poking her head out after them, presumably to make sure they haven’t been tailed or spotted. “Harry Potter, is it? I’ve seen you in the papers.”

__

“I have been known to be in the papers,” Harry says, resisting the urge to cringe. Dara looks delighted that this is the route the interview is taking and Harry accidentally-on-purpose treads on her toes when they go to sit down.

__

“Is it true then, that you died?” She asks, setting a plate of rather strange looking biscuits in front of them.

__

“Yes, yes, I was a little dead,” Harry says, aiming for ‘affable,’ and judging by Dara’s face, ending up far closer to ‘irritable.’ “We’re actually here to ask about your neighbor Rob. We heard you had some complaints regarding his toads.”

__

Connie’s eyes narrow, and Harry identifies the experience as similar to being glared at by a gossipy version of Professor McGonagall. “You’re finally investigating my toad complaints? After years of being ignored by the Aurors, now you’ve come to reign justice upon Rob and his illegal toads?”

__

Harry tries to fashion his expression into something resembling composure. He is quickly becoming concerned about this whole enterprise, particularly as Connie pours tea rather aggressively into tiny pink tea cups.

__

“Have a biscuit,” she commands. He and Dara hesitate for a moment, but both reach for one as her glare intensifies.

__

“Your neighbor is actually under investigation,” Dara says, using what Harry suddenly recognizes as one of the voices she uses when trying to talk her toddler Jess into something she already knows Jess won’t like. “We’re hoping that you might have some information that could help us.” Dara levels her gaze at Connie. “And once we clear that up we’d be happy to personally investigate your toad problem.”

__

Connie sips her tea, watching as they nibble their way through their biscuits, which are actually fairly good and taste like pistachios. “I’ll consider it.”

__

“Thank you,” Dara says. “Can you tell us if you’ve seen anyone out of the ordinary visit Rob’s house in the last month or two? Anyone who doesn’t normally pay him a visit.”

__

Connie looks pensive, setting her teacup down on a doily. The fire she has going in the tiny fireplace is making the perfumed cabin far too hot. Harry feels a little lightheaded, sweat beginning to gather on the back of his neck. He wants to ask her to open a window, but has a feeling, given the seriousness with which the aubergine shades have been drawn, that this will only send her further off the deep end.

__

“Well, there was that woman,” Connie begins. “It was about a month ago, maybe a little longer. She was in there for quite a while and I heard some shouting. I’d never seen her before.”

__

Dara furrows her brow. Harry notices that she’s flushed as well, and hopes that the rest of the rest of the questioning goes quickly so they can escape this potpourri hell-cave.

__

“Was she someone you recognized?” Harry asks, and Connie shakes her head. “Would you mind giving us a thorough description of what she looked like and what she was wearing?”

__

“Oh, of course,” Connie says. She doesn’t seem to be as affected by the unnatural heat, and Harry can feel his dislike of her quickly mounting as he tries to discreetly daub sweat from his forehead. “She had on one of those big pink hats, the new ones from Madam Malkins, maybe you’ve seen them?”

__

Harry nods, though he hasn’t seen them. He wonders why Connie thinks this is the kind of information he would have on hand just about at the time that he notices that the cloying floral smell is starting to make his head hurt.

__

Connie continues, as if she can’t sense their discomfort, which, maybe she can’t. “She had short blonde hair, wasn’t very pretty. Not enough chin.”

__

Harry glances over at Dara at the exact moment that her eyes glaze over and she slumps back against the chair. Harry only has time to look at Connie, who is regarding him nervously.

__

“Terribly sorry, Mr. Potter. Someone already made me an offer about the toads,” she says, at which point he blacks out.

__

xx

__

The first thing he hears upon waking up is Dara’s voice. “Oh _finally_ you’re awake! Harry we have been got! We have gotten got. We were so stupid. The potpourri! The biscuits! We were got by a old gossipy hag.”

__

Harry winces at the crick in his neck, grimacing as he reaches up to rub at his face and his shoulder makes an unpleasant popping noise. He’s wandless, sore, disoriented, and sitting across the room from Dara, who has her back against the wall and her elbows resting on her knees.

__

“Where are we? How long have you been awake?”

__

“Only like ten minutes,” she says. “Enough time to realize that we have been extremely got. Wands gone, no windows, haven’t a clue where we are… Worried sick about Jess. Rachel’s watching her today, but if she’s been kidnapped too, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

__

“Jess has almost certainly not been kidnapped too,” Harry says, rolling his neck gingerly. “Those stupid biscuits. They weren’t even delicious. We were conned by mediocre biscuits.”

__

“Fucking biscuits,” Dara says derisively. Harry rolls his wrists and neck, not sure if he should be more or less alarmed by the fact that they aren’t handcuffed. “We got totally stripped of weapons. They even got my emergency Peruvian Darkness Powder and Smoking Whizbangs. And those were hidden shockingly deep.”

__

Harry decides not to ask what Dara considers shockingly deep and checks his pockets, dismayed to see that not only is he without his pack and wand, but that he’s also lost the candy bar he was saving for a snack, the messenger coin he could have used to get in touch with backup, and his favorite quill. “I’m personally a little concerned that the fact that we’re not handcuffed means we’re going to be here for a long time.”

__

“Oh you better believe it, HP. This place has a bathroom.”

__

Harry swears, trying to get up and sitting back down hard when his head spins. “No food though. We might get deliveries, see if we can break out then.”

__

Dara looks venomous. “Won’t even know what hit ‘em,” she says. “Might help us figure out where the fuck we are.”

__

The room is vaguely familiar, something jarring in Harry’s memory as he stares at the at the trim, which has a distinct kind of flower pattern molded across the top, as if it was sloppily painted over when the room was made completely white.

__

“I already tried punching the walls. Nearly broke my hand. There’s definitely some kind of spell defense, and I tried Apparating — perhaps should have waited — nearly splinched since I’d just woken up, was thinking next—“

__

“Dara. Can you be quiet? I think I know where we are.” Harry is staring hard at the trim, trying to place it. He’s nearly given up when the memory hits him like a train, so bizarre and specific that it makes him double over with laughter. He knows the pattern of the floor trim because he’d seen it up close and personal in a dream while slithering along the floor inside Nagini’s brain, the night Voldemort attacked Arthur Weasley. “We’re in the fucking Department of Mysteries.”

__

Dara looks at him like he’s grown an extra head. “How the ever loving fuck do you know that?”

__

Harry points at the baseboard. “The flowers. I’ve been here before, I know the print.”

__

“Admittedly gorgeous detective work,” Dara says. “But why are we here?”

__

Harry smiles, clues linking together in his mind. He is thrilled that his brain has chosen this moment to return, and hopes it continues to operate at such a success rate. “Right before I passed out, Connie said that someone had already made her an offer about her toads. The Ministry is in on this somehow, she gave us our answer after all.”

__

Dara cackles. “Oh, they can never resist the urge to gloat. But to return, _who_. And _why_.” Harry half expects her to whip out a magnifying glass and deerstalker, and suspects that she would if not for the fact that the entire contents of her robes had been confiscated.

__

“Could be a plot to discredit Draco,” Harry says. “Some vigilante ministry worker who wants to destroy the Malfoys’ reputation once and for all. Plenty of people on our side don’t like werewolves either, might just view them as collateral damage.”

__

Dara seems to weigh it, then shakes her head. “Creative, but probably wrong. This isn’t some random ministry worker— look at our new flat. Whatever we stumbled into, it’s an operation. Kidnapping us is not only stupid, its kinda crazy. Who knows what the long game is— probably some cute little Obliviates, some cover story…” She scowls. “Better hope one of our genius friends on the Aurors break us out of here before that. I’ll be so pissed if I’m Obliviated and don’t know.”

__

Harry hopes that whoever has them trapped in here hasn’t fully taken into account that they have Hermione Granger on their side.

__

xx

__

By the end of a mystery amount of time, one that Harry would be happy to quantify if he had access to any sort of clock, he and Dara have become hungry and irritable. They’ve cycled through a series of less and less likely theories regarding their imprisonment, one based on the assumption that Connie is scheming to become the Minister of Magic and another presuming that the entire Wizengamot is populated by vampires. They’ve tried just about every wandless spell in the book on the prison and are extremely displeased to find that the place is disturbingly well secured. They do manage to singe the carpet, which is moderately satisfying, but puts them no closer to leaving or contacting anyone in the outside world.

__

Harry wonders if anyone has noticed they’ve gone missing yet. Since they’re always running out to do field work, Ron might not notice if he misses work tomorrow, but if he doesn’t show up to family dinner with Ron and Hermione on Thursday they’ll know for sure that he’s either dead or kidnapped. He hopes they don’t have to wait that long, especially if the case is on the line. He realizes, with minor embarrassment, that Draco will almost certainly notice that he’s gone, since they’ve been making a habit of showing up at each others’ houses in various states of disarray every twenty four hours. He wonders if Draco has already sent off a letter in his neat handwriting asking politely if there are any updates. He wonders what he’ll think if Harry doesn’t reply or come tumbling out of his fireplace unannounced and at what point he’ll realize what’s going on.

__

“Do you think they would have gotten Malfoy too, if they know he’s on the case?”

__

Dara squints at him, mulling it over. “Maybe. Since he’s not thrown in here, I doubt it.”

__

“Different punishment flat?”

__

“Maybe.”

__

Harry can tell Dara is figuring out how to say something, and waits for her to do it. “Do you think he could be behind any of this?”

__

“No way,” Harry says, remembering the conviction in Draco’s eyes when he’d said he was trying to be a better person. He remembers the night they’d found him after he’d turned, how before he’d gotten his bearings he’d looked so afraid. “He wouldn’t.”

__

“Why not? He hasn’t been the most trustworthy person in the past.”

__

“He’s different now,” Harry says, and is startled by how often he’s been in Dara’s position, trying to convince someone that Draco Malfoy is an evil git who generally sucks. He’s surprised by the vehemence with which he believes otherwise.

__

Dara grumbles, but doesn’t argue, leaving Harry to stew in his own thoughts. The room is so quiet that every move either of them makes seems way too loud, which is even more infuriating because Harry is sure they’re encased in a tidy Muffliato that’s keeping out the hustle and bustle of the Ministry. What he wouldn’t give to be able to eavesdrop on someone’s boring office gossip to pass the time.

__

He knows he’s being stubborn about Draco, which, all things considered, is the most familiar and comforting part of any of this. He considers whether or not there could be any truth to Dara’s suspicions, but keeps returning to the morning he’d shown up at Draco’s flat and he’d touched Harry’s face with a kindness so disarming that it still makes Harry’s chest constrict to think about it.

__

Harry fusses with the lace of his shoe, the ends frayed and dirty from too many missions spent running around. Harry runs their conversations over and over in his head: Draco’s expression in the diner when he’d explained to Harry that no one knew he was a werewolf, how vulnerable he’d had to be, even though he was pretending to be flippant. He thinks that the reason that he trusts Draco is because Draco had trusted him when Harry had given him no good reason to. He remembers the look on Draco’s face after Harry had let his temper get away from him, something approaching fondness.

__

At that moment, there’s a low popping noise and a box of food appears in the center of the room, startling Harry and causing Dara to let out a long, anguished moan. “Oh of course its magic delivery, we can’t catch a fucking break.”

__

“Puts a real damper on our plan to beat the shit out of whatever Ministry shill was going to bring us dinner,” Harry says, going to investigate what looks to be a rather measly collection of fruits and sandwiches. “Apple?”

__

Dara scowls and holds her hand out for it. “I know most prisons are by definition pretty difficult to break out of, but I’m still pretty pissed about this whole situation.”

__

One square-ish meal later, Harry’s spirits are moderately higher, though as the hours stretch on and he falls in and out of a fitful sleep on the floor, he can feel tensions beginning to escalate. As what Harry can only assume is night time stretches on, he and Dara switch off sleeping and wasting time. Harry does sit ups and push ups until Dara tells him she’s going to wring his neck if he doesn’t stop breathing so loud, and after that he goes back to staring off into space.

__

It’s perhaps the next day, or else Harry has gotten tired of trying to sleep on the thinly carpeted floor, when Dara decides to pursue the most irritating course of action and attempts to kick her way out.

__

“You never know, Harry,” she says, driving her steel-toed boot into the drywall, which is holding with nary a scratch. “Wizards sometimes have a blind spot when it comes to brute force.”

__

Harry bites back the cranky remark he wants to make, and instead permits Dara to kick the wall for a solid twenty minutes, during which he develops a headache he can only sufficiently describe as a catastrophe.

__

“Dara,” he says finally. “I’m begging. I would rather rot in here for the literal rest of my life than listen to you continue to kick that wall.”

__

Dara turns to look at him, mumbles what sounds like ‘fine,’ kicks the wall once more, and then sits back on the floor with a considerable amount of attitude. “If your ferrety little boyfriend turns out to have had any hand in this, HP, you’re really going to have some Galleons to put in the Pizza Party Jar.”

__

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Harry says, neglecting to say that this is neither of their faults, and the people who should be putting their galleons in the Pizza Party Punishment Jar are whoever has them locked in the Department of Mysteries, presumably to rot.

__

“Oh you can come off it,” Dara says. “I know you’re sleeping together, you don’t have to give me that bullshit.”

__

Harry sighs from somewhere deep inside his chest. Harry wonders how many of their charming friends have assumed that they’re sleeping together and how exactly he feels about it. If he’s honest, the emotion is closest to blind panic. “We’re honestly not, and you and everyone else can fuck off with it.”

__

Dara looks at him like she’s trying to figure out if he’s lying and if so, about what part. “But you like him.”

__

“Why does everyone care so much about what I fucking like,” Harry spits, glowering at the far wall, which is blank and white and does nothing to distract him from any of this.

__

“Probably because I’m your friend and partner, jeez,” Dara says. “Don’t bite my head off about it. I’m just saying you clearly like him and that once we get out of this mess you should put on your big boy pants and say something about it.”

__

“Dara, I’m telling you to fuck off.”

__

“Potter, Merlin almighty, what is this? Are you scared he doesn’t like you back? Are you scared of what people are going to think?” she asks, staring at him curiously. Harry hates the way she looks like she’s seeing a new side of him for the first time, and wishes he knew how to cover it up.

__

“You were just saying you think he’s behind this and now you’re saying I should date him? If you’re going to talk shite at least pick a stance,” Harry snaps. His words hang in the stagnant air and he deflates, feeling embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m sorry. That was out of order.”

__

Dara frowns. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have goaded you into it.”

__

“It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean anything by it,” Harry says. “It is funny. I’d do the same with any of you.”

__

Dara sighs and looks up at the ceiling. Harry looks up at it too and sees that it’s boring and white, just like the rest of the room. “You know, I’m only saying this because we’re probably going to get Obliviated and forget this ever happened, but it wouldn’t kill you to actually let yourself have something you want for a change. I’ve watched you sidestep more romantic prospects than anyone, and it’s like you don’t even know you’re doing it. I used to think it was because you were still in love with Ginny, then I thought maybe you were ace or aro or something, but I don’t think that’s it. I don’t get it, dude.”

__

“It’s the traumas,” Harry says gravely, and Dara rolls her eyes.

__

“Be serious, I’m trying to be vulnerable with you.”

__

“I’m pretty bad at that,” Harry says. He’d already had his most serious heart to heart of the year not twenty four hours earlier with Draco, and that was about five difficult minutes for which he didn’t even have to divulge any personal information. “I know I do the thing you’re talking about, you’re right. I just like, don’t even think it’s an option for me. I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like I’m allowed to get what I want. Like yeah, maybe The Chosen One can, but not me. I’m not like, likeable. I’m kind of a knob.”

__

Harry is concerned to notice that Dara is starting to look at him with the same long suffering look she directs at Jess when Jess begins to argue bedtime. “Why don’t you let the people who want to fuck you decide whether or not you’re likeable, hmm? Give yourself the chance to be ghosted. Give yourself the chance to be stood up at a mid-level Italian restaurant.”

__

“You’re not really selling this,” Harry says, but he’s smiling. Dara, like Ron, has the inimitable talent of coaxing Harry into a personal conversation that doesn’t immediately make him want to die, and he’s incredibly grateful for it. “So. To be clear. You do or don’t think Malfoy wants to bugger me.”

__

Dara looks pained. “Remind again how you two ever successfully hooked up in a Ministry bathroom?”

__

“So much wine, so many self destructive coping mechanisms,” Harry says. The truth is, he’s not totally sure how it happened. It had seemed like such a bad and interesting idea that he couldn’t properly resist the impulse when it came to him. From this vantage point, Draco almost seems like a good idea, which makes it scarier than it’s ever been.

__

Dara looks like she’s considering taking Harry’s face in her hands. “I take it back, we better not get Obliviated because I’m never having this stupid conversation with you ever again. You are worse than Jess, a toddler who is literally not yet developmentally able to have empathy for my suffering.”

__

“But consider my suffering, Dara,” Harry offers, and she lets out a protracted moan, slouching against the floor.

__

“Let’s just figure out how to get out of here,” Dara says. “New plan, if we just keep blasting the walls, they’ll eventually cave?”

__

“Why do all of your plans seem designed to give me a headache?” Harry asks. “And how are we supposed to blast without our wands?”

__

Dara smacks her forehead with her palm. “I forgot we didn’t have them,” she says. “We’ve been in here too long.”

__

Harry quite agrees. Time stretches on in the white cube, during which Dara concedes that Harry can do push ups if Dara is also doing push ups and they brain storm more futile strategies for trying to escape the boring prison flat of anguish. After another food delivery and a few more hours of fitful sleep, Dara is scratching the word ‘remember’ onto her inner thigh with her pointer finger, as she’s become convinced that whatever stupid shit is about to happen, it will probably end up with them being Obliviated. Harry is concerned she’s right, but since she’s more interested in scratching her future self a message via her skin, Harry is content to let her get on with it. She’s halfway through the first m when Harry hears a bang, then realizes that the fact that he can hear a bang means that something, somewhere is happening.

__

He locks eyes with Dara and they’re both up in an instant, straining to hear whatever is going on outside. Harry wishes more than anything that he had his wand, though he feels moderately confident in his ability to kick and/or punch his way out of certain disaster. Outside, there’s a bit of yelling, what sounds like another explosion, and the thump of a body hitting the outside wall.

__

“Sir! Sir! This is highly confidential, highly dangerous prisoners-”

__

“Oh, shut your ugly mug,” Harry hears Ron say, which sends a wave of relief over him so powerful that he feels weak at the knees. There’s an additional hubbub, and Harry hears Ron swear loudly.

__

The wavering voice is back again. “Stop! Stop! This is highly irregular!”

__

“I’ll have you know that I have more dark magic in my pinkie finger than you’ve seen in your worst nightmares, and if you don’t let me in there, I’ll fucking skin you alive.”

__

Dara, at this proclamation, looks at Harry with what he can only describe as sheer, childish delight. Harry has a feeling that her delight has everything to do with whatever expression he has on, the likes of which he doesn’t care to imagine. He thinks he might be smiling, but it’s absolutely not a given.

__

“Oh Harry, your face. It’s like Christmas,” she says, and Harry starts to tell her to go soak her head as the doors crash open, revealing Draco himself, wand raised and pale hair all askew. Harry has never seen him look so disheveled, his soft-looking jumper rent completely at the shoulder, revealing a long, bleeding gash that splits the pale skin beneath. He’s gotten dust all over his hands and face and has a long smear of blood across his cheek, standing tall and wild eyed in the doorway. Harry’s brain helpfully informs him that the overall effect is kinda hot.

__

“Oh pick your jaw up off the floor, Potter, yes, it’s me,” he says irritably, glancing behind him as a presumably-stunned Ministry employee slides to the ground. “Do you think we could get out of here?”

__

Dara lets out a peal of laughter and leads the way back into the hallway. The corridor is a disaster, the familiar criss-crossing singe of spells covering the walls, a sconce down on the floor, its candles extinguished on the rug. Even full of adrenaline and delighted to have been rescued, Harry already knows the paperwork for this case is going to be worse than anything he’s ever seen.

__

Ron appears from around the corner, already yelling. “Harry! Dara!” He looks for a moment like he’s going to hug them, then seems to think better of it, checking to see that they’re all accounted for before tearing down the hallway towards the stairwell. “Follow me! We’re going to get out of here and then Apparate back to mine so we can get patched up.” Ron holds up his left hand. “You may notice that I, for example, have acquired a broken finger!” Ron’s hand is quite swollen, purple blossoming across his pinkie and ring finger, both of them held at an angle that makes Harry’s stomach turn a little.

__

They take a corner at top speed, nearly running into a witch and making her drop all her papers. As her things go flying everywhere and Dara yells an apology, the lights dim to a menacing green, a voice ringing out through the halls. “ATTENTION, LOCKDOWN, ALL MINISTRY PERSONNEL PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR OFFICES OR THE ATRIUM FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. ATTENTION, LOCKDOWN, NO ONE MAY ENTER OR LEAVE THE BUILDING.”

__

Harry hears Draco swear, but Ron begins to laugh, flinging open the stairwell door. “Oh, they think that’ll work? No Ministry hack is going to stop us, we’re the good guys.”

__

Harry laughs despite himself, grinning as two security guards follow them onto the landing and Draco dispatches them with well-aimed stunning spells. They hit the ground with two satisfying thumps and Harry thinks perhaps he shouldn’t be enjoying this quite so much. The alarm continues as they race down flight after flight of stairs, passing a few Ministry employees who don’t seem to have any idea that their escape is the reason for the lockdown.

__

“Okay!” Ron yells. “So they probably think we’re going to take one of the back exits, but, they’re dumb. We’re about to hit the atrium, it’ll probably be chaos. Dara, Harry, you don’t have wands, so stay between me and Malfoy, we’ll be headed for the closest door and as soon as we’re outside the wards we Apparate to my house. Everyone clear?”

__

There are hollers of assent and then they’re smashing through the doors and tearing across the atrium which, as could be predicted, is absolute pandemonium. Harry nearly takes out a wizard carrying a merrily smoking potion and stops only to help Dara up after she jumps over a small end table and crashes into two other harried looking employees like they’re bowling pins. The ominous warning message is blaring on repeat, only adding to the panicked cacophony of the large, echoey room.

__

They’ve made it almost halfway across the atrium when Harry sees Draco go down with a smack against the floor, rope wrapped around his ankles, a security wizard behind him looking very pleased with himself. Harry turns to a frightened looking witch and says “I’m Harry Potter, lend me your wand,” which works shockingly well, and then aims a spectacular hex straight at the guard’s face, which sends him sprawling to the floor, covered in snails.

__

Draco looks up at him with a bloody grin, letting Harry haul him up as they’re approached from all sides by security wizards. Draco slides behind him so they’re standing back to back, firing off spells at the opposition. Harry can see Ron and Dara to their left doing the same, and is pleased to see that Dara has somehow got her hands on a wand and is doling out hexes with impressive gusto.

__

Around them, the crowd has devolved into chaos in the competing desires to see what’s going on and get as far away from the all spells and jinxes as possible. Harry is vaguely aware that the voice’s message has changed and has started to repeat something about imposters in the ministry. He and Draco move in a slow circle, their shoulder blades brushing as they move, Draco’s elbow knocking into his. Everything smells like blood and he knows that they’re not losing yet, but they might be.

__

“Draco! Shield us!” He yells, and a shield bubbles up to enclose them, muffling the disorder of the atrium so all he can hear is Draco gasping for air as they lean against each other. Harry doesn’t expect that he has more than ten seconds to cast, and he glances over at Dara and Ron to make sure they can see what he’s doing.

__

Dara catches his eye and grins, yelling something to Ron. Harry checks the position of the doors, he breathes in, and concentrates. “On three, drop the shield and get ready to run for the door,” Harry says, and then counts them off.

__

On three, Harry casts, sending everyone flying backwards for a radius of thirty feet. There’s a moment of shock and then pandemonium, but they’re already pelting towards the door, and have made it out into the cloudy morning and Apparated before anyone else gets their hands on them. They all land in a heap on Hermione and Ron’s doorstep, then bang their way inside, warding the door shut behind them.

__

Harry has never been so happy to collapse into the huge, ratty armchairs that Ron and Hermione use to populate their living room, watching as Dara, Ron and Draco all find their own surfaces to fall against. He realizes that he still has whoever’s wand he stole and no hide nor tail of his own, and that his entire body is beginning to hurt. For a minute or two, there’s only the sound of their heavy breathing, before Harry notices that Draco’s nose is steadily dripping blood onto his sweater.

__

“Nose,” Harry says.

__

“What?” Draco asks, not moving from the couch that he’s artfully sprawled upon, his limbs akimbo.

__

Harry points. “It’s bleeding.”

__

Draco groans, reaching a hand up to pinch off the blood and then yelping when he realizes his nose is in fact, potentially broken. “Will someone fix me,” he says. “Whenever someone has a minute. At your convenience, really.”

__

Ron, who, having chosen a bit of carpet to lie on, is the closest, crawls up to Draco’s level and casts a rather aggressive episkey, which resolves the problem with a crack.

__

“Thank you,” Draco says, rather as if he wished he’d just taken his chances with the broken nose.

__

Harry gestures between Draco and Ron. “So you guys…“

__

“Are dating?” Ron offers from his position on the carpet. “Certainly.”

__

“Are working together,” Harry says dourly. Draco snorts, then immediately winces, a new drop of blood sliding to his lip.

__

“Ah yes, actually, that one,” Ron says. “Wow there’s so much explaining to do. We need Hermione, she would have a. Hmm. What’s she call it. A Power Point. Merlin, that was a mess. That was not supposed to be half as messy as that, Hermione is not going to be happy.”

__

“Where is Hermione?” Harry asks, looking around like she’ll pop up from behind the couch.

__

“Raising hell at the Ministry,” Ron says. “Additional hell. _Bureaucratic_ hell.”

__

“Scary,” Dara says. “Am I right to assume that you know why the Ministry kidnapped us?”

__

“Extremely right,” Ron says. “Malfoy, would you like to begin?”

__

“Gladly,” Draco says. He’s managing to look even a little dignified in his tattered sweater and dirty trousers, sprawled out on Ron and Hermione’s bright red couch. Harry debates telling him to be careful not to get blood on it, but knows that couch is no stranger to absurd mess. “So about two days ago, two Ministry goons come into my potion shop and try to kidnap me. I understand that I look like I could be taken ill by a chill breeze, so I suppose they can be forgiven for thinking that two Ministry goons would be enough to take me by surprise. Turns out that they did know we were working together on the case.” Draco smiles with rather too many teeth. “They didn’t know that I’m a werewolf. Nasty surprise for them when they found out.”

__

Harry nearly chokes. “Are they alright?”

__

“They will be,” Draco says mildly, the effect rather improved by the sheer amount of blood he’s accumulated on his very nice clothing. “So after that happens, I think, hmm. Perhaps I should come see Potter at work in order to get his assistance regarding my most recent attempted kidnapping. At which point I hear that you and Dara have apparently both been involved in a top secret case snafu, rendering you both incapacitated and in need of quarantine for the remainder of the month. And to me, who has just been accosted by Ministry goons, this sounds like a bald faced lie.”

__

“Which it is,” Ron offers. “So I’m minding my business, eating a sandwich, when Malfoy comes running into my office. Which, frankly, is a surprise.”

__

“A surprise for me too,” Draco adds. Watching them go back and forth is bringing Harry so close to the brink of hilarity that he almost can’t stand it. He thinks if they wanted to make this a very serious debrief, they could be trying a whole lot harder.

__

“So he outlines the situation to me and explains that we need to find you lot and figure out what you learned that was so inflammatory that the Ministry got involved.”

__

“So you go rooting through our desks,” Harry offers.

__

“So I go rooting through your desks,” Ron confirms. “Great snack selection, Harry. I love your eternal devotion to chocolate frogs. You and every five year old I know. Did everyone know that Dara keeps fluffy, pink handcuffs in her desk? She does. So, not only do I find no mention of whatever case might have caused you to be quarantined, but I find no mention of a werewolf case, which I know to exist, if only because I am accompanied by said werewolf. And because you told me you were working on a werewolf case because you break your confidentiality agreement with me every goddamn day.”

__

“You told him I was a werewolf?” Draco interrupts indignantly.

__

“Not that _you_ were a werewolf!” Harry protests. He would be a little embarrassed about how much confidential case information he shares with Ron if Ron didn’t share just as much with him. “Just that there was a werewolf case with an unspecified werewolf, who could really have been anyone.”

__

Draco does not look particularly mollified, but doesn't interrupt as Ron plows on.

__

“So I think to myself, who has keys to all of our offices and would want to tamper with Harry and Dara’s werewolf case and I think, oh, of course, that little slug Millence Filbin.”

__

Dara and Harry both gasp theatrically.

__

“Indeed,” Ron says. “So Malfoy, who still looks more than a little wolfy and I, who on a regular basis look buff and intimidating” — Dara, Harry, and Draco all make unique skeptical noises, which Ron ignores — “go down to Goat Cheese Millence Filbin’s office and ruin his fucking afternoon.”

__

Draco grins, again, toothily. “Turns out he squeals like a crup.”

__

“So Millence has some particularly interesting information, namely that he has no idea why he was instructed to destroy that case file, only that his father asked him to do it. Which is interesting, considering that his father is one of the Ministry’s head councilmen.”

__

Dara has both of her hands clamped over her mouth at this point and looks like she’s torn between laughing and screaming.

__

“But I know fuck all about Millence Filbin and his daddy issues, so we call in the expert.” Ron leaves a dramatic pause and Dara chimes in.

__

“Is it Malfoy? The daddy issues?”

__

Draco looks scandalized, and Harry tries to figure out how to disguise his laugh as a cough. Judging by Draco’s glare, he does a subpar job. “How bloody dare you.”

__

“The expert is actually Hermione,” Ron clarifies. “For her Ministry connections and superior intellect, not her daddy issues.”

__

“Obviously,” Draco adds, which just draws attention to the fact that he looks slightly embarrassed.

__

“And so then Hermione, after being brought up to speed, immediately pieces together that Millence Filbin’s shitty dad, Councilman Filbin, is the absolute bellend behind the Magical Creatures Registry Law they’re trying to pass.”

__

“Holy shit.”

__

Ron nods seriously. “Holy shit.”

__

“So it was sabotage,” Dara says to Draco, who now looks rather pleased with himself. “You were right.”

__

“Naturally,” Draco says. “Filbin thinks that if sixty-four werewolves get loose in London and wreak havoc, people will be more likely to support his pathetic little bill and then he can get the magical creature registry he’s always wanted and manifest his evil control fantasies on the population at large, with the added bonus of making my esteemed potions shop look bad.”

__

“But it won’t work,” Ron adds, delivering the coup de grace. “Because Hermione Granger-Weasley is, as we speak, eviscerating him in front of the whole council and he’s going to lose his nasty little job and probably go to evil wizard jail. Azkaban. Evil wizard jail is just Azkaban.”

__

“Wow,” Harry says. “So Dara and I really solved just none of this case, huh?”

__

“Well, you did solve some of it,” Ron says sympathetically. “The getting kidnapped thing wasn’t great but you were on the right track.”

__

“You don’t have to lie to make us feel better, Ron,” Dara says, standing up with a grimace. “Okay. Alright. Am I free to go? Have we reached the part of the plan where I can go collect my adorable and terrible two year old and tell her that mommy has only been temporarily kidnapped, and as a treat it’s movies and ice cream for the rest of the night?”

__

“Maybe shower first,” Ron offers. “You look moderately pulverized in a way that could be alarming for the under-five set.”

__

“Fair point,” Dara says. Her pants have a tear up the leg and her face is covered with spattered blood and mysterious green powder. The effect is rather gruesome and Christmassy. “Can I use your shower?”

__

Ron nods. “Use the red towels in the cabinet. Anything that looks fancy is Hermione’s and you shouldn’t use, anything that looks dumb is mine and fair game.”

__

Dara salutes and goes to find the bathroom, leaving the rest of them sprawled out in the living room, quite exhausted and fairly trampled.

__

“Harry, my mate who I treasure, would you happen to know if Malfoy is any better at mending broken bones that you are?” Ron asks, holding up his now extremely swollen and purple hand. “We have a bit of an ongoing issue.”

__

There’s an awkward few minutes of whinging and complaining as Draco positions Ron’s fingers where they belong, before Draco casts a clean _episkey_ and Ron’s hand is left swollen and bruised but largely set to rights.

__

Ron wiggles his fingers experimentally. “Awesome, love my new hand. Palfoy, if you would come help me make some lunch, that would be great.” Ron is doing an admirable job of pretending that this new configuration of friends sitting in his living room is incredibly normal. The fact that Draco and Ron have effectively worked together is easily the funniest part of all of this, and it’s taking all of Harry’s self control to not make a bigger deal about it.

__

They follow Ron into the kitchen, Harry half-wishing he’d been quicker on advocating for the shower, as the sweat and dust has dried against his skin in an uncomfortable way. Harry glances at Ron and Draco to find that of the three of them, he’s actually probably the least disheveled, which comes as a bit of a shock.

__

Hermione will owl or Floo as soon if she needs anything, but in the meantime all they can do is wait, and potentially snack. Though Harry fully intends to help, as soon as he sits in one of Ron’s dining room chairs he immediately decides he’d much prefer to spectate as Ron prepares five sandwiches. Ron has set the radio to play highlights of the most recent Canon’s match, which Harry thinks is a very clever way of letting them all veg out after a startlingly high-octane past few hours.

__

Draco hovers near the counter, opens his mouth like he’s trying to figure out how to help, and then seems to reconsider. “I’m going to wash the blood off my hands. And face,” he announces, heading to the kitchen sink and running the water red. Harry notices, watching him, that his jumper doesn’t seem very committed to staying on his body. Harry follows the line of his neck down to his shoulders, realizes he can see the knobs of his spine. Draco has fine, pale, delicate hair on the backs of his ears that Harry can only see when it catches the light just so, which is very upsetting, to say the least.

__

Draco glances over to him, seems to realize that Harry is staring, and looks away. After that, Harry tries to focus on the artful way that Ron is constructing the sandwiches, which, unsurprisingly, seem to have more than the average amount of toppings on them.

__

Draco leans down to wash his face and Harry watches him keep his eyes closed after he finishes, the water dripping from his nose and eyelashes back into the sink as he breathes.

__

“Do I have something on my face, Harry?” he asks, not opening his eyes. “Other than, you know, blood.”

__

“Oh, no, no you got most of it,” Harry says. He knows he should look away before Draco stands up, but he doesn’t, just watches as Draco dries his face with a dish towel, scrubbing his hair back with his free hand and standing tiredly in the kitchen, staring back at Harry. Ron has his back to both of them and is humming, the radio still going, and Harry knows somehow that he’s not turning around on purpose. Draco won’t break his gaze, his eyes gray and still wild and maybe a little sad, and Harry is waiting for him to say whatever it is he’s going say, but he just deflates a little, tossing the tea towel onto the table. “I’m. I’m going to go outside.”

__

Draco slips out and Ron finally turns, jerking his head after Draco in a signal that reads to Harry as “GO!!!!” Harry stands up, looks around the kitchen in a daze, and then follows Draco out the back door, where Hermione and Ron’s summer garden is overflowing out of its raised beds. The day is mild and cloudy, a breeze shifting the old oaks into each other with a pleasant rustling. Draco is standing a few steps into the grass, his hair blowing in the wind, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders still bare.

__

“Hey,” Harry says, the screen door smacking shut behind him. Draco doesn’t say anything and doesn’t turn around, but he doesn’t move away when Harry sidles up next to him. “Thanks for rescuing me.” Everything Harry says seems to make the frown lines on Draco’s face even worse. “It was brave of you.”

__

Draco sighs. “Oh, don’t go insulting me now, Potter.”

__

Everything that Harry wants to say to him seems so trite, something about how they should see each other after this, how it really meant a lot that Draco would come after him, how he’s glad that it all had to happen this way, even if so much of it was so dumb.

__

“Quit looking at me like that,” Draco says, his gaze fixed on the trees.

__

“Like what?” Harry asks, still looking at the bruise blossoming across Draco’s cheek, the blood still dry on his neck, his hair, which hasn’t been neat since the day began.

__

For a moment, Harry doesn’t think he’s going to answer, but then he turns to Harry, and then he does. “You don’t actually like me, do you?” he asks, every part of him so contained, so quiet. “After the Prophet ran those pictures you wouldn’t even look at me for like two years, and that’s fine, whatever, I get it, I’m a Death Eater and an idiot and I don’t deserve you, but then all this, you keep looking at me like, I don’t know Harry, like you’re in love with me. But I know you’re not, I know I don’t deserve it. Do you just like knowing that I’m kind of in love with you? Because that’s not fucking fair. It’s not fair.” Draco deflates, face flushed, his hands twisting over each other. “Please, please just leave.”

__

“Draco,” Harry manages, registering that he takes his own name like a blow. “You’re in love with me?”

__

Draco shakes his head, closing his eyes and pressing a hand to his mouth. “I said kind of.”

__

Harry wants to comfort him and doesn’t know how. Everything about the last hour and a half has been completely untenable, nothing has made sense since he found Draco lying in that petunia patch and they picked right back off where they left off. Even though Draco has said that he loves him (kind of), he can’t understand it as true. Draco is saying that Harry doesn’t love him, but that doesn’t seem true either. He’s staring again, at Draco, who he has always believed to be beautiful. Harry reaches out to brush his fingers across Draco’s cheek, finding the skin soft and cold and nearly damp.

__

Draco doesn’t open his eyes. “Don’t do it if you don’t mean it.”

__

“I don’t know how to ask for what I want,” Harry says. “I haven’t been with anyone since you.”

__

“Why not?” Draco asks.

__

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “I would see people and know that I thought they were good-looking, or kind, and then think that I shouldn’t do it, because it never was— even with Ginny, with you and Cho and Cedric, I was never allowed— it was always this big deal and I didn’t know what to do so I just stopped trying.”

__

“Oh,” Draco says. “Did that help?”

__

Harry shakes his head. He’s lonely, and he’s known for a long time that he is, but thought it was okay, like how Petunia would always have the telly on, how he stopped noticing the background noise until the rare moments that it turned off. “No, not really.”

__

Draco nods. “Are you going to kiss me, then?”

__

Harry can feel his face doing something terrible and knows that he looks terrified, that he is terrified, that he doesn’t know how to speak.

__

Draco opens his eyes, and looks at him in a long and searching way. Their faces are so close that he can see Draco’s pale eyelashes, the intricacies of the bruises on his cheek, just how pink his lips are. “If you don’t want me to kiss you right now, you should leave.”

__

Harry stays, and Draco reaches up to cup Harry’s face, running his thumb over his stubble, examining him with such uncompromising affection that he can hardly remember how to breathe. Harry holds his gaze and presses his cheek against Draco’s hand, watching his expression melt into something even worse, like he’s going to eat Harry alive. This is exactly what Harry wants, he realizes, as Draco kisses him soundly, his other hand finding its way under Harry’s shirt and resting on the vulnerable skin of his stomach, pressing him backwards a few stumbling steps until his back collides with the brick.

__

Harry wraps his arms around Draco’s shoulders, a hand tangling in Draco’s terribly messy hair. He realizes that if Draco is in love with him, that means he’s allowed to mess up Draco’s perfect hair any time he wants, which makes something explode happily in his chest.

__

Draco presses the long, slender line of his body against Harry’s, sliding his tongue into Harry’s mouth and moving his hand so it splays across Harry’s rib cage, pinning him there. It’s not at all like last time, when everything was so oversaturated and numb and ephemeral, both of them scrabbling for any kind of affection. Draco is kissing him like he’s trying to tell him something and it’s incredible, a sensation not unlike relief.

__

Draco pulls back to mouth along Harry’s neck, brushing his lips against the skin and then biting down, his breath hot. Harry makes an embarrassingly vulnerable noise in the back of his throat, which Draco rewards by sucking a bruise just under Harry’s ear, in a place Harry is sure he’s chosen for how difficult it will be to cover up.

__

“You taste like sweat,” Draco murmurs, his words vibrating against Harry’s skin.

__

“Sorry,” Harry says. “You smell like blood.”

__

Draco laughs, kissing up Harry’s neck to his ear and lingering there, just breathing. “Do you like me back yet or should I keep trying?”

__

“Kiss me again to be sure,” Harry says, kissing Draco’s temple, along his cheek, his mouth. Draco is so endlessly warm and sure in all the places he’s touching Harry, something certain in his movements that Harry wouldn’t have expected and doesn’t remember being true before. “Come home with me,” he says, and Draco is nodding, kissing him, and nodding again.

__

“Of course,” he says, smoothing his thumb across Harry’s cheek. “Of course I will, you’ll never get me to leave.”

__

“You’ll have to go home and get clothes,” Harry says. “I know you’ll never wear mine.”

__

Draco smiles, shaking his head. “Oh, never, not a chance,” he says. “I ruined a very nice jumper for you today.”

__

Harry touches the skin left exposed by the tears in the knit, running his finger across the raw edge. “I noticed, I was so impressed.”

__

Draco kisses him again like he can’t stop and Harry melts into it, clutching Draco’s jumper.

__

The back door opens and they don’t pull apart quickly enough, both entangled and looking slightly guilty as Ron sticks his head out. Harry thinks that the real indication of how much things have changed is that Ron looks moderately embarrassed, but relatively unflapped by the proceedings. “No more kissing, you floozies. Hermione’s back. Both Filbins have hearings tomorrow to see if they’ll keep their jobs, but Mione reckons they’ll both be sacked and disgraced.”

__

“Oh, well, that’s good,” Harry manages, as they separate and follow Ron inside. Harry feels he’s not quite doing his best at pretending he’s not half hard and fairly flustered, but in his defense, this isn’t the kind of thing that normally happens to him.

__

Hermione fixes them with the kind of ‘I’m not judging you, but I do know what you’ve done’ look that she’s spent the last few years perfecting, and fills them in on her latest bureaucratic victory. Turns out, even among Ministry bootlickers, kidnapping Harry Potter, attempted sabotage, and general tampering are pretty serious offenses, and after one tense hour of deliberation, their hearings have been scheduled for the following morning.

__

“I’m really am so glad you’re alright, Harry,” she says, picking up one of Ron’s weird sandwiches and giving it a skeptical glance before nibbling on the edge. She’s wearing her Ministry robes and looks miles better than any of the rest of them, except maybe Dara who has appeared in the doorway looking quite clean in a Molly-Made-Jumper and a pair of ratty joggers. “When Draco and Ron told me I was worried sick.” Her brow furrows. “And then I was pissed.”

__

“Truly Hermione in top form,” Ron adds, resting a hand on the back of her neck. She looks up at him and preens, just a little.

__

“Love to hear this,” Dara says, grabbing her weird sandwich from the counter and taking a bite. At no point does she seem to realize it’s a weird sandwich. Her shower-wet hair is dripping on the floor, which just makes Harry even more envious of the fact that Dara has had a decadent hour-long hot shower before he has. Harry then considers that it’s quite likely that Draco will take an hour-long hot shower with him, and has to take a deep breath and think of England for a few moments. “Any news on my wand and things?”

__

Hermione starts, fumbles in her overlarge purse and procures both Harry and Dara’s wands, as well as two bags of various and sundry items. Harry is pleased to see his Auror pack and his favorite quill among the mess. Dara retrieves her stuff, yawning rather performatively. “Well, time to go see Jess. Good work everyone, this has been really fun, see you soon for another boring day at the office.”

__

Harry goes to gather his things, then returns to Draco’s side as casually as he can while everyone tells Dara goodbye, leaving the rest of them alone in the kitchen. Harry’s trying his best to figure out how they’re going to gracefully exit said kitchen so he can have shower sex with Draco, who is doing an admirable job of acting chill considering they’d just been caught kissing by one of Harry’s most beloved friends. “Thanks for solving my case, Hermione,” Harry says, accepting a weird sandwich from Ron.

__

Harry glances over at Draco, who has taken a bite of his and is now looking at the baguette with suspicion. “Weasley, what is this?”

__

“BLT,” Ron says blithely.

__

Hermione stifles a laugh. “The case was a team effort. I’m just glad it ended up like it did. If Draco had been kidnapped, it could have been a very different story.”

__

“Oh no,” Harry says, realization dawning on him. “It was the case equivalent of one of Luna’s crossword puzzles. Multiple intelligences.”

__

Hermione’s expression darkens. “I could have solved it myself. If it were my case I would have figured it out.”

__

“Thank you Hermione, that’s very flattering,” Harry says, and she makes a guilty little nose.

__

“Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that!” she says, looking a little embarrassed. “Harry, don’t tease me about the crossword puzzles, you know how I feel.”

__

“I do,” Harry says. He glances up at Draco, who is holding his sandwich a little protectively and seems a little unsure where exactly he needs to be. “You can sit down, you know.”

__

He does. Hermione makes them recount the epic rescue and looks appropriately scandalized by how messy it ended up being (“I had no idea they would actually try to _stop_ you! We did the right thing by getting you out of there before I went to the council.”) and is very impressed by everyone’s heroics. Draco even flushes pink instead of fussing when she exclaims about how brave he must have been, probably because Hermione is quite convincing about that kind of thing. Hermione then debriefs them about the finer points of the council showdown and her plans for tomorrow’s epic deposition, which, if the prologue is anything like the actual show, may cause the Filbins to wither and die on sight.

__

Harry, whose body has been doing an admirable job of pretending he didn’t sleep on concrete for two nights in a row, is beginning to nag him rather persistently about getting actual rest. His knee, which is pressed against Draco’s knee under the table, is also reminding him that if he goes and finds a bed, there’s a high probability that Draco will take pity on him for the trials and tribulations he’s suffered and suck his cock. He supposes that considering that Draco was extremely brave and saved Harry’s entire arse, perhaps it would only be fair for Harry to suck his cock, which is not, per se, an issue.

__

Draco and Hermione have embarked on a line of conversation involving the various perks of high quality quill nibs, an affection that possibly only they and the literal Percy Weasley share, and Harry listens in relative confusion until they come to a stopping place before nudging Draco’s knee with his own. “As much as I love you all, I think it’s maybe time for me to find a shower and a real bed.”

__

Draco nods sagely. “I should go as well. Thank you for your help, both of you.”

__

“Was a surprise and an honor to storm the Ministry with you,” Ron says, which is an incredibly high commendation coming from him. “Thanks for sucking so, so much less than you used to.”

__

“It’s pretty easy,” Draco says. “Considering how much I used to suck. Not hard at all, actually.”

__

Ron looks impressed by this bit of banter, and asks Draco a few questions about who he goes for in Quidditch as they head to the fireplace, which Harry recognizes as his official friendship vetting process. Harry senses that they’re about to get into it, and is grateful for Hermione procuring the Floo powder before it can devolve into a debate, as he’s almost certain Draco is not a Chudley Cannons fan, if only because he probably wouldn’t consent to wearing orange.

__

“Okay, who wants to go first?”

__

Harry catches Draco’s eye and realizes that there’s absolutely no way they can do this casually. He opens his mouth to suggest something extremely incriminating, and then gapes like a fish for a few seconds. “My house?”

__

Hermione is looking between them expectantly, like she’s waiting for them to clarify whatever is going on.

__

Ron crosses his arms. “Ok, I’ll bite, they don’t know which house to go to because they’re fucking and they didn’t plan it in advance and don’t want to say so in front of us.”

__

Hermione gasps. “What? No! Harry!”

__

Harry is torn between laughing, attempting innocence, and shoving Ron into the Floo. “I thought you knew! You looked at us with that ‘I know what you did last summer’ face!” Harry protests. Draco looks absolutely scandalized.

__

“That’s just my face!” Hermione looks flabbergasted. “No one told me! You know I hate to be the last to know. I was the last to know when Ginny and Luna were fucking too.”

__

“Ginny and Luna are fucking?” Harry asks, as Draco makes a kind of choking noise next to him.

__

“Oh for Merlin’s sake Harry of course they are, why do you think Luna is always over there?”

__

“Friendship?” Harry shrugs, a variety of situations making a whole lot more sense in hindsight. They do rather more candlelit dinners than anyone would expect of platonic friends, but Harry had assumed that was just their style.

__

“Come on Harry, be realistic,” Hermione says, then sighs. “I can’t believe this. Next time anyone is fucking I want to be the first to know.”

__

They all agree that if they’re fucking anyone new they’ll send Hermione a prompt owl and then Hermione scolds them for patronizing her, but eventually they get the Floo powder and stumble back into Harry’s living room.

__

Inviting Draco back to his apartment because they’re going to shag is so surreal that Harry feels like maybe he needs to lock himself in the bathroom and just scream for a little while. The Prophet knows they’re fucking, his friends know they’re fucking, and he’s a little embarrassed about it, but the world hasn’t ended and that is a pleasant surprise.

__

“Your friends are weird, Potter,” Draco says, brushing the dust off of his very worse-for-wear sweater. “Extremely weird.”

__

“I know they are,” Harry says, dumping his effects onto the chair and winging his shirt in the direction of his bedroom, as it is at this point, quite gross. “And yet, I have a feeling that your friends are going to be even worse.”

__

Draco nods sagely. “Indubitably.”

__

Harry has a vivid flashback to when Draco went to go intimidate Pansy’s new boyfriend and has a horrible realization about the sort of vetting process he’s about to be subject to. He doesn’t think he’s ever done a single thing that would impress Blaise Zabini and can’t imagine he’ll manage it now.

__

Draco has elected to stare at Harry and do the thing where he stands in the middle of the room like a lost crup waiting for someone to tell him to sit down.

__

“So, I was thinking,” Harry begins, trying his best to sound casual. He’s aware that he doesn’t, and takes solace in the fact that Draco also looks like he’s bricking it and is definitely not going to call Harry out for it. “That I need a shower and likely, you do too and so maybe we could both go shower and make out and the rest and I could like, kiss your wounds or whatever.”

__

“Kiss my wounds?” Draco asks, looking slightly pale. “Is that… Is that what you Gryffindors do?”

__

“I was mostly kidding,” Harry says. “Unless you think it’s hot.”

__

“I think,” Draco says manfully. “It could be hot.”

__

“Noted,” Harry says. “Should I take my pants off, or did you want to?”

__

Draco steeples his fingers. “You can. I’ll take off mine.”

__

At which point Harry starts laughing and taking off his pants, while Draco pulls his clothes off and tells Harry very sternly to stop laughing while also laughing, and then they’re both naked and Harry is realizing once again just how beautiful Draco is, particularly with his clothes off.

__

“You’re really fit,” Harry says. Harry thinks that its a very good thing that he’s going to be allowed to wrap his hands around the wiry muscles of Draco’s biceps in the next few minutes, because there’s only so much more temptation he can really stand.

__

“We need to figure out how to make you talk less, it’s in no way the sexiest thing you do,” Draco says, looking around. “Where is your shower?”

__

“I can’t figure out if I should be asking you what the sexiest thing I do is or telling you to kiss me if you actually want to shut me up,” Harry says, taking Draco by the hand and pulling him through his bedroom and into the bathroom.

__

“Point,” Draco says, and presses him against the wall to kiss him soundly. Harry shivers against the chill of the tile, gasping as Draco presses their bodies together, sliding a warm thigh between Harry’s. Draco brings his mouth to Harry’s ear, sucking on his earlobe. “And it’s probably when you get a little righteous.”

__

“Oh,” Harry says, which he thinks is fairly verbose considering that Draco’s breath is very warm on his neck and Harry’s just reached down to run his hands over Draco’s arse. Draco is soft and warm under his hands, and he’s kissing Harry’s neck again, tilting Harry’s chin up so he can leave kisses from his jaw down to his collarbone.

__

“I thought we were showering,” Harry manages, as Draco sucks a bruise against Harry’s collarbone. Harry is already hard, in addition to being moderately sweaty and blood covered, and is not sure he’ll be able to successfully perform his role as ‘the person who actually gets them into the shower.’

__

“Mhmm,” Draco says, pressing his erection against Harry’s thigh. “Definitely.”

__

Harry, who really would prefer to be kissing Draco in warm water instead of against cold tile, summons his remaining self-control, takes Draco’s face between his hands, kisses him on the mouth, and says. “Be good for once in your life and let’s get in the shower.”

__

Draco permits himself to be led into the tub and fondles Harry’s arse while he turns the water on, which Harry finds incredibly distracting as he tries to convince his tap into the perfect place between lukewarm and scalding.

__

“Is ‘Eagle’ the _scent_ of your bodywash or the _brand_?” Draco asks, as Harry finally gets the water a pleasant temperature and stands to wet his hair, letting the hot water wash over him. “Oh and you’re a shower-hog? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by this.”

__

Draco is nervous, Harry realizes, which makes it that much harder to tamp down the shit-eating grin that’s threatening to creep across his face.

__

“I’ll share,” Harry says, pulling Draco under the water and kissing him, sliding his hands up Draco’s slick chest, over the all of the scars there. Draco makes a vulnerable noise into Harry’s mouth when he’s touched and leans into him as Harry wraps his arms around Draco’s shoulders.

__

“Yes, the shower is the better place for kissing,” Draco says. “I see your point.”

__

Harry does kiss the wound on Draco’s shoulder, ghosting his lips over the angry, red skin, until Draco pulls him back up to be kissed properly, a hungry look in his eyes. Harry had expected it to feel more familiar, like the rushed and dirty sex in the Ministry bathrooms, but being kissed like this, so completely, feels brand new. He’s happy, he realizes. He’s happy, and he’s allowed to be.

__

“Can I touch you?” Draco asks, taking Harry’s chin in his hand, and kissing him when Harry nods, breathless as Draco wraps his hand around Harry’s cock. “Beautiful.”

__

Draco is taking his time, slowly jerking him off while running his other hand through Harry’s wet hair. It’s almost too much, meeting the intensity in Draco’s gaze as he slides his thumb across the head of Harry’s cock. Last time hadn’t been like this, so intense and searing, Draco watching him with some kind of ravenous affection. Being the center of Draco’s attention is as tantalizing as it’s always been for him.

__

Harry goes to take Draco’s cock in his hand and gasps when Draco intercepts his wrist. “I think we should focus on you first, hmm? I’d like to watch you come.”

__

“Oh my god?” Harry says, aware that at some point Draco has started supporting a fair amount of his weight.

__

“If that’s alright,” Draco murmurs, still moving his hand in an excruciating rhythm. He has a sly little smile on his face that’s making Harry, if possible, more turned on. Harry had thought that having hooked up with Draco before, he’d had some idea of what he was in for, and thinks with delight that maybe he has no fucking idea.

__

“Yeah,” Harry breathes, rocking his hips into Draco’s hand. “Yeah, yes.”

__

“Good,” Draco says.

__

Harry thinks, through the steamy fog in his brain that if Draco’s skin is already so pink and pale, that he’ll have an easy time sucking very obvious bruises onto it, which is exactly what he’d like most. Draco hums a moan as Harry clutches him close and bites down on the fragile skin of his neck, sucking until the skin is red under his teeth.

__

“Didn’t know you were such a vampire,” Draco says. “Are you giving me hickeys?”

__

“It’s very possible,” Harry says as seriously as he can, swallowing a moan as Draco twists his hand in a clever way. Harry can see how hard Draco is, and knows that he’ll probably lose his hand privileges if he tries to touch him again, which is a good enough reason for Harry to try, grinning when Draco grabs his wrist and twists it behind his back.

__

“I said wait,” Draco says mildly, watching him with lidded eyes. “I only have two hands, so I wouldn’t try that again if you want to get off anytime soon.”

__

“Handcuffs next time?” Harry suggests, which makes Draco smile again, that evil whisper of a thing that feels like a shared secret.

__

“Good note,” Draco says, pressing their foreheads together, his lips brushing against Harry’s open mouth.

__

Harry’s already so turned on he can barely think straight and the awareness that Draco is definitely teasing him by moving his hand so slowly is only making it worse. “I’m close.”

__

“Are you?” Draco asks. “But you look so nice like this, seems a shame to rush.”

__

“Malfoy,” Harry says desperately, jerking his hips to try and get a little more friction.

__

“Oh, it’s like that?” Draco asks, releasing Harry’s wrist to place his free hand on Harry’s neck in a way that feels mildly threatening and more than a little bit sexy. Draco has his thumb resting very deliberately against Harry’s Adam’s apple. “I think you could call me by my first name when I fuck you, don’t you?”

__

Harry decides then, immediately, that’s he’s not above begging, even a little bit. “Draco, please. Faster, I—“

__

“Be good,” Draco says, and Harry has to close his eyes and focus very hard on not being pushed over the edge. “You look gorgeous like this,” Draco says. He says it like it’s easy to say, like it’s true, and it makes Harry tremble. He wants to beg to hear it again, over and over, until he believes it.

__

“You’re so good for me,” Draco says, his voice impossibly gentle. Draco’s praise and clever hands have eroded any stamina he might have had, and Harry’s so close he can feel it building in the core of his body as Draco holds him out on the edge.

__

“Please, I—“ Harry says, the rest of the words swallowed in a moan.

__

“Look at me.”

__

Harry opens his eyes, meeting Draco’s gaze. He’s doing that thing again, looking at Harry like he’s going to eat him alive, and it’s so much, especially as Draco leans in to kiss him, as slow and gentle as the hand he’s sliding up and down Harry’s cock.

__

“Do you want to come for me?” Draco asks, and Harry nods desperately, nose bumping against Draco’s. “Ask nicely.”

__

“Please,” Harry starts, then falters. “Please, I’m so close—“

__

Draco brushes his lips across Harry’s cheek, speaking softly into his ear. “Ask me again.”

__

“Draco, fuck, please.” Harry thinks if Draco asks him any more times, he’s not going to be able to manage anything resembling words. He’s aware of Draco’s breath against his cheek and the warmth of the shower and Draco’s hands and feeling profoundly cared for and vulnerable, somehow two sides of the same emotion.

__

“Come for me.”

__

Harry does, hanging from Draco’s shoulders while his orgasm slips over him, his face buried in Draco’s neck as he comes across Draco’s wet stomach. When Harry remembers how to stand of his own accord, Draco is pressing kisses to Harry’s neck and looking terribly serious and beautiful.

__

“Wow,” Harry says, and it comes out more breathy than he’d really intended. At some point, Harry has ended up with both hands looped around Draco’s neck, one tangled in Draco’s hair. “Um. So do I get to touch you now?”

__

Draco smiles, looking more than a little bit pleased with himself. He’s started jerking himself off and looks far more self-satisfied and beautiful doing it than Harry thinks should be allowed. “You don’t just want to watch me?”

__

“Draco. Please. You can’t kill me the first time we fuck,” Harry says. Draco had let go of the hand he’d had pinned behind Harry’s back, which was his first mistake. “You have to allow me use of my hands,” he says, running them over Draco’s hips. “They’re good hands. I think you’ll like them a lot.”

__

“This isn’t the first time we’ve fucked,” Draco says, though his tone suggests that he’s been distracted by the idea of Harry’s hands. “Maybe we should have done the handcuffs.”

__

“You aren’t going to win this,” Harry says. He’s only regained about twenty percent of his brain function and has just learned that he’s not really above begging, at all, even a little. “I’m so buff. My job is being buff. Your job is what? Being smart and stirring? My job is at least forty percent punching. If you make me wrestle you in this shower I may pull down the curtain in the process but I will win.”

__

Draco is suddenly looking a lot less assured, particularly for someone actively bringing himself off. “I can’t tell if you’re threatening me or propositioning me.”

__

“Yes, exactly,” Harry says. “Now let me touch you.”

__

“Why I am convinced by this?” Draco asks, letting Harry slide his hand over Draco’s and then moaning into his shoulder. “Merlin, alright, very strong argument.”

__

“That’s what I thought you said,” Harry says. He’s vaguely aware that neither of them have actually meaningfully cleaned themselves, and that in many ways this is the least successful shower he’s ever had. There are other ways in which this is the most successful shower, like the way Draco has started breathing heavily into his ear again and seems to be trying very hard to be quiet, something Harry is very interested in exploring.

__

“You can be loud if you like,” Harry says.

__

“Sorry,” Draco says. “I’m not good at being quiet. My bedroom was in a very secluded part of the house. It taught me bad habits. I was not suited to dormitory living,” he says all of this in a rushed, strangled kind of voice that devolves very quickly into a moan when Harry switches up his rhythm.

__

“Very hot, thanks for sharing with the class,” Harry says, and Draco makes a noise that’s potentially supposed to be a reply but is definitely just a whine.

__

“I can’t. Have. This. Conversation. Right now,” Draco says, quite laboriously, and Harry does not kiss him on the nose and tell him that he is a perfect and special treasure, only because he doesn’t think it would draw more of those incredible noises out of Draco’s mouth, which is really his number one priority. Now that Harry thinks about it, he does remember Draco being a bit loud, but he’s really in a position to appreciate it now.

__

Draco is holding very tightly to Harry’s torso and seems very attached to burying his face in Harry’s neck, shuddering against him as Harry works him over. He keeps making breathy, pornographic little noises that Harry would accuse him of faking to be sexy if Draco didn’t seem so intent on trying to muffle them against Harry’s skin.

__

It occurs to Harry that if Draco is content to boss him around, then maybe he’ll also let Harry be the little spoon when they nap, which brings him such an acute joy that he kisses the only part of Draco’s face he can reach, which is his ear. Draco holding him so tight and so close is doing something very terrible and squishy to his heart, something that he fears maybe be permanent.

__

Draco rolls his hips as Harry strokes him, whimpering against Harry’s neck. Harry is swept up in the bizarre urge to call Draco some kind of pet name, which he’s never done in his life and is terrified to actually open up his mouth and do. As he moves his hand over Draco’s cock, his thumb sliding precome across the head, Harry also seriously considers telling Draco that he loves him, which he thinks is definitely something they still need to work up to.

__

“Draco,” Harry says, at a loss for anything else. “You’re so good. You’re so hot and good.” He can’t make his voice sounds like Draco’s had, so soft and assured. A little ragged and hopelessly fond is the best he can do.

__

Draco’s holds completely still as he comes, making a series of vulnerable, breathy noises into Harry’s shoulder. Harry, mercifully, doesn’t say the first thing that comes to his mind, which is “Oh, did that work?” as Draco relaxes against Harry’s chest, sliding his arms around his middle. Harry is fairly sure this is a strategy to prevent him from being looked at, which won’t do at all, so he wiggles out of Draco’s embrace. He looks incredibly debauched and not considerably cleaner than when they’d gotten in the shower, his eyes glassy and a bright flush decorating his cheeks.

__

“You look really good,” Harry says. “You are really good. Where did that come from?”

__

“Which bit,” Draco says, sounding quite innocent, all things considered. Harry crowds him up against the tile, grinning when Draco makes a face at how cold the tiles are and tries to squirm away.

__

“You know which bit,” Harry says. “Ask nicely? _Ask nicely_?”

__

“I thought you might think it was hot,” Draco says, looking a little embarrassed.

__

Harry puts both of his hands on Draco’s shoulders and makes extremely intense eye contact with him. “It was so hot. I would like to do it again, possibly every day. Maybe more than once a day.”

__

Draco nods, opens his mouth to respond, and then just nods some more. “That really was better than the last couple times. Not that they were bad. I was just. So wine drunk.”

__

“And now you’re kind of in love with me,” Harry says, and Draco grimaces.

__

“Against my express wishes.”

__

“I’m kind of in love with you too,” Harry says. He isn’t quite sure how it happened, but it’s definitely true.

__

“Oh,” Draco says, looking surprised and quite pleased. “Are you really?”

__

“Yeah, obviously,” Harry says.

__

“Good note,” Draco says. “Do you think, now we’ve both come and confessed our love for each other, that we could actually shower? I would love to actually shower.”

__

Harry thinks this is quite rich from someone who just tried to debauch him against the tiles. “You’ll have to use my eagle-scented body wash slash shampoo.”

__

Draco grimaces, but seems to realize he’s in no position to argue. “Just this once, assault to my dignity though it is.”

__

Harry suspects that his bathroom is about to acquire a substantial collection of very fancy hair and body potions. He suspects that he’s going to end up with a separate shampoo and body wash, which is probably for the best. He also has the suspicion that perhaps he will finally have to learn the different names for all of the wizarding ties that exist, and maybe learn one to two things about wine.

__

In a more general sense, it’s also beginning to occur to him that they’re going to have a truly heinous amount of paperwork in the morning, which will most likely consist of individual forms for each and every one of the Ministry sconces they broke in their heroic escape. He’s also at some point going to have to break the Draco-news to Dara, who will find some way of making him put a Galleon in the Pizza Party Jar for his Draco-kissing crimes.

__

In the meantime though, and most pressingly, he’s going to shampoo Draco’s hair.

__

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, consider giving my fic post a sweet little reblog (https://drarrytrash.tumblr.com/post/190901293399/clouds-that-veil-the-midnight-moon-by) and leaving me a comment!!
> 
> Basically I wrote this because at some point this winter my existential dread at the state of the world became such that I had to return to my favorite emotional support ship and Here! We! Are! If you liked this please consider donating literally just like $5 to Indigenous Environmental Network (https://www.ienearth.org/) because Indigenous people are on the front lines of the climate struggles that we're fighting today! No fanfic on a dead planet unfortunately lads. Also consider organizing locally! Trying to elect people other than literal ghouls is great, but joining organizations like the DSA in the US or local organizations in your community is a great way to make a meaningful difference. Do it for me!! Do it because it's what Harry Potter Good Boy Extraordinaire would want!! Ok that's my soapbox love you all 
> 
> Also feel like I should note that this fic is so so deeply in debt to The Stately Homes of Wiltshire by waspabi (the platonic ideal of a fic) and Bitter Honey Green Night by Faith Wood, which you should read if you haven't yet!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Classics Cover: Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27475369) by [zeziliazink_art (zeziliazink)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeziliazink/pseuds/zeziliazink_art)




End file.
